Reviews tagging 'Rape'

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

1108 reviews

hygge77's review against another edition

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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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emeraldsky's review against another edition

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3.5

Honestly, I had so many mixed feelings about this book.

First of all....please, for the love, include a SA trigger. Omg.

I thought the vampire was interesting enough to keep reading, but really, why did so many women have husbands that sucked? I know plenty of couples from that era who have busbands who would have listened to them. Is it a southern thing? I don't know.

I liked the theme of "we have to work together to fight a great evil." It played out nicely. 
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ladychubb's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

3.0

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ohheyash's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

This book did take me a min. to get through. I was neither good nor bad. I think the mid to end of the book picked up for me. I can say that how housewives were treated by their husbands in this book had me ready to go through the book and help them out!! I like how a group of women, especially one in particular, came together to save the day. It’s messed up what happens along the way though.
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georgiabee's review against another edition

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

4.5

I flew through this book. I liked the writing style a lot — I was worried as I DNFed The Final Girls Support Group because I’m not a horror movie fan, but was pleasantly surprised by this one. Don’t let the pretty cover fool you, this shit gets daaaark. Like, def check out the trigger warnings for this one. 

This is a supernatural horror, so there was obviously some suspension of disbelief involved. That said,
why did no one question the rats??? Like, I know they didn’t publicize Ms Mary’s rat death a bunch because it was weird and gross, but was no one like WTF?? Where’d all those rats come from?
. I also wish we’d gotten to know more about this particular brand of vampire lore as it clearly departed from Dracula/Edward Cullen standard vamp rules.
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aelis's review against another edition

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

3.75

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thisbookrox's review against another edition

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dark sad fast-paced

3.5

READ CONTENT WARNINGS. they were so intense i wish there was a blurb at the beginning of the book. the story was kind of shallow regarding the women and patricia. 
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tiudragonfly's review against another edition

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Extremely gory, sexist and racist.
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anabak's review against another edition

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

3.5

A reflection of southern women and their desire to be domesticated. Some of the scenes were quite vivid and shocking like there’s a rape scene. 
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editorsansserif's review against another edition

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

4.5

NB: This book deserves a host of content warnings before reading. If you are a sensitive reader, please check those before starting this book - it escalates the deeper you get. It is not a "light" read.

General overview: A book that is, actually, about a vampire, though not in the way you might expect - pitted against a community and a group of women (the 'book club') who are deeply flawed and fail several times, at a great cost, before finding the courage to do what is right. Strong themes of racism, sexism/misogyny, and child predation. 

Emotional impact: I loved this book, despite not being able to love its characters. The main cast, and protagonist, are flawed, sometimes very deeply. They do show growth over time, while many of the side cast do not (or deteriorate), and it works - but they never truly become heroes. I spent a lot of reading time being angry and incensed, not toward the villain, but toward the main characters of the book, and the families that surrounded them. I feel like that's part of "the point."

Visceral impact:   The body horror, and gore, did make my skin crawl, but never felt explicit enough to make me want to stop reading.  The author sometimes went a little 'over the top' with the terrible events that happened in the novel, to the point of unbelievability and disgust. Spoilers/CW for child death:
Most of the children's suicides were remarkably unbelievable, outside of the boy that jumped in front of a truck. The evil rat infestation was also extremely supernatural to unbelievability, despite the fact that the supernatural was the ultimate explanation. No one would find these events to be credible, even in the 1990's southern American world.



Counter thoughts to some criticism:
  • On the 'Stepford wife' nature of these wives and mothers in the 1990s: I found this not only believable, but incredibly realistic. I grew up in the 90s with a southern-trained mother and a southern grandmother, and around many families who had the same 'sensibilities' drilled into them. The way that these women acted in the book felt like a genuine flashback to what it felt like growing up around women who played pleasantries and kowtowed to men and never wanted to disturb the status quo. While I can see why they might not come off as believable to those who haven't experienced what I have, I felt it was authentic. CW (suicide/minor spoilers):
    My mother didn't protect me from the predator in my own family, and she dismissed my earnest pleas for help when I was battling depression and suicide as a teenager. My father always knew what was best to the point he'd become threatening if he was questioned. They wouldn't have protected me from a vampire.
  • On the misogyny: See above - this felt very real to me thanks to my own lived experiences. Of course there are good men. It's just that none of these husbands were good men. It would have been nice to have a good man join the women to counter the culture around them - one husband who really did believe his wife and didn't fall for the trap - and that does feel like a disservice.  I can also see that the author was trying to really lean in to the power of women and their shared bonds, so it could be a tricky balance to find while keeping the message the same.
  • On the racism and racist stereotypes: As a white person, I can't and won't speak to representation of the POC in the novel.  I do feel, however, that the quiet racism that was expressed by the white women in the book was genuine and called into question several times. These white women do not ever go through a full anti-racist transformation, but they are confronted and, I believe, do make some steps of growth. We're never shown anything more than a reckoning with their unspoken attitudes and the result of those actions, though. 
  • On animal death: I thought that the final animal death scene was touching, actually, and made both sense rationally and plot-wise. That's not for everyone though: if you don't like pets dying, you're going to hate that portion of the book. 

Additional criticism: Addressed in my content warnings, but there is a side plot during which the main character's son is becoming increasingly obsessed with Hitler + Nazis. This isn't treated seriously at all by the characters in the novel and is not resolved by the end of the book. This should have either been dropped or handled with more severity, and that's a major lack of sensitivity to the implications the author adds with this plot element.

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