Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

308 reviews

meganadams2244's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

Literally so gross. At the beginning, i was a little bored and cringed out, the middle was ok, then the ending was so discusting and i could not read it anymore.

I dont understand why he had to make james harris suck peoples blood through their inner thigh in a very sectual way abd describe it as being euphoric for the victim, especially because he always goes after kids, like thats so fucking discusting and does not need to be in a book.

without the gross parts and the ending, i could have given it a better rating but i can not give a book with such a horendus premus a rating better than the lowest.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

kendralyris's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

I thought this book might be bad at about 30%. By 50% I was sure it was bad. I was shocked at 75% when it somehow got worse.  The characters are flat and emotionless.

 The main character, a housewife with no personality, and an emotionally abusive husband, befriends what she later find out is a “vampire” but the kind that is a moth I guess since it has a proboscis of all the stupid shit. When she tries to fix it, she is thwarted by toxic masculinity in the form of every single man in town and she makes a suicide attempt. Rather than spend any time with the internal emotional world of this doomed character, the author decides to skip ahead, and in the last 20% of the book attempts to bootstrap some weird sexual tension between this monster and the main character. Don’t worry though, he didn’t forget to include rape! Nor did he forget to include an absolutely plot-point scene where the main character sees her high-school student daughter naked with the vampire. Oh, and one of the characters is obsessed with Nazis. No one has any personality or interests except the one kid who likes to read about nazis. 

And I wouldn’t be that mad except that the author decided to include a preface to his book going into his process and how he essentially wrote it to honor his own southern stay at home mom, whom he had apparently ignored when he was a child, shocked as he got older that she was a real person. 

This book is terrible. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Dementia, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Classism

ursimae's review against another edition

This book is a 1.5/5 stars.

The premise is sounds so good, but the execution was terrible. It's so bad that I dont think I'll even try reading another book by this author.
It's laughable that this book was supposedly written as like a love letter to his mom considering what happens in it.

Sorry for the rant, but I can't with this book.
Let me list out a few of the transgressions:

• Weak writing. Outside of the horror scenes, the prose felt sloppy.
• So many racist stereotypes. The only reoccurring black character is given the "mammy" role. The next mention of other POC are shown as servants to the rich white people of the town during parties. From there, the stereotypes just continue. At points, it seemed like Grady was opening good dialogue on how racism impacts black communities in regards to their valid concerns being downplayed and ignored. However, he kept dropping the ball with it. It's like he placed the talking point in front of us then swept it aside before we could fully digest it and have a meaningful talk.
• Why the hell does the son love Nazis? The kid is obsessed and idolizes them. It literally plays no part in the story. Why'd you add that Grady? It wasn't necessary. Why you keep bringing up Nazis. Also, why was the MC totally cool about it? Huh? Grady, why was everyone okay with Nazis? It wasn't plot relevant.
• SO MUCH GASLIGHTING. Omfg, it made me want to rip out my hair. 
• Hey, Grady...why did you write about the MC gaining 11 lbs as if she gained 200????? You just threw that part in there for what?
• Hey Grady... What's with the graphic retelling of a rape scene? Why?
• Hey.... Grady... Why did you have to include so many child sexual assault scenes... Story would've been totally cool without that. Really wasn't necessary.
• The MC attempts suicide and its treated by everyone (even the MC) like some petty "fuck you" to her husband.
• Also, there's just a lot of domestic abuse.
• I was 64% through when I DNFed and literally, never once was there a part about women becoming empowered and badass, taking on vampires. It was just 7+ hours (audiobook listener here) of a woman being severely abused.
• Not one character is likeable.
• All the other women in this book are just misogynistic stereotypes. None of them have any actual depth of character and feel very flat.
• The biggest horror wasn't the vampire stuff, but the husband, omfg they were the real villains.
• apparently at the end, she only gets a divorce from this dude... I feel like she should get to kill her husband for the shit he did to her. Also, none of the other women get to fix their abusive relationships?

There is probably more than I could say, but I've ranted about this long enough.
There is very important commentary to be had with the topics of this book that would be awesome to explore further, but it only comes across as 400+ pages of women being repeatedly abused, racist, sexist, and outright terrible characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Confinement, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Medical content, and Grief

Minor: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Bullying, and Fatphobia

drpeeper's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I would say check trigger warnings before reading this. not sure if it’s due to personal life struggles or the nature of the book, but this was a rough one. interesting characters and plot and some funny moments, but a pass for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Misogyny, Racism, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Hate crime, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

spikytortoise's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

mxbadger's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

So hard to put down. As a huge fan of true crime myself it was so easy to wrap myself up in the "what would you do?" Of it all. A little jaw dropping at times, but would definitely reccomend to modern horror fans

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Violence, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Self harm, and Death of parent

mushymargo's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Lots of gross details you can tell it’s a man writing women. Lots of unnecessary naked women with WAY too many details and the sexualization of a minor

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Gaslighting

gwenna_laithland's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Medical content, Dementia, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

hygge77's review against another edition

This book is horrifying and it has nothing to do with the vampire. The characters say a lot about the author. This book contains antisemitism, racism, misogyny, pedophilia and sexual assault/rape. None of which has anything to do with the plot  and it’s all discussed as if it’s all no big  deal. I was disgusted by this book. I was hoping it would be a cute story, given the description but the further in I got, the more disgusted I became. This is probably the worst book I’ve ever read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, and Gaslighting

ahyshia's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide, Blood, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail