Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

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

38 reviews

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

We love to see moms kicking ass and this book showed us how far moms can go to protect their loved ones. I do wish all the women were more involved. People made this out to be more creepy/disturbing than it was for me. It was def worth a lot of the hype it received although it wasn't a perfect book for me. Entertaining for sure and a good read if youre in a bit of a spooky mood. Would def recommend checking content/trigger warnings because I wasn't expecting a few things in here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Sexism

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Hate crime, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Vomit, and Sexual violence

alloftaysreads's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide, Stalking, Religious bigotry, Racism, Misogyny, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual assault, and Toxic relationship

kyliehenn's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Dementia, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Death, Death of parent, Racism, Murder, Self harm, Child death, Child abuse, Blood, Pedophilia, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Body horror, Gaslighting, and Sexual assault

shieldbearer's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

 

“The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires” is about how a small-town white community reacts when faced with a threat from the outside. How much can one sacrifice for safety and prosperity and who pays for those sacrifices? Who- and what- is worth protecting? How culpable is the one who watches and does nothing? 

This is a book that features deeply human, but nuanced, female characters. The female characters have rich inner lives and personalities even when operating within the social norms of their small Southern town.  This is an nuanced, layered exploration of womanhood- particularly how white womanhood is affected by white privilege. People dismissing the characters as "doormats" have clearly ignored the parts of the book that scream that they are choosing prosperity and security over the lives of Black children, which is easily one of the most realistic parts of the book.   The author is a man, but his mother inspired him to write this book, and it truly shows. I wish more female characters were written with this flawed complexity. I also really felt the author did a good job building and releasing tension. 

Also. Y'all need to get better at adding tags. We get graphic second hand accounts of both sexual assault and racism (a man was literally LYNCHED) and half of y'all only tag the sexual assault?? I think that proves my point. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Racism, Murder, Suicide, Misogyny, Blood, Body horror, Hate crime, Sexual assault, Stalking, Child abuse, Classism, Violence, Death, Confinement, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Addiction, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Pedophilia

Minor: Alcoholism and Animal death

pj_grasshopper'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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Originally posted on Goodreads


3/4 stars. 

I honestly was debating on giving this four stars or three. The book itself was great, I love the research that went into this book and the plot was pretty good. However near the end of the book, I found myself nearly gagging at the SA scenes in the book, and I hate the fact the husbands had no consequences from gaslighting their wives, and the protagonist’s son was weirdly obsessed with war world two. Overall I think the book is fine and if you want to read it you should look up the trigger warnings for the book first before buying it. 

Here’s a link with some of the warnings for the book:

https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/21901

https://booktriggerwarnings.com/index.php?title=The_Southern_Book_Club%27s_Guide_to_Slaying_Vampires_by_Grady_Hendrix

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Hate crime, and Rape

Moderate: Child death, Racism, and Suicide attempt

wonderworm's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Dementia, Death of parent, Hate crime, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Rape

goodbyelore's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.75

This is a book for people who enjoy Dead Dove Do Not Eat, dark fiction. Enjoyable if a bit slow but the pace is fitting for the characters, though frustrating at times. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Dementia, Excrement, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Vomit, Violence, Body horror, Suicide attempt, Racism, Hate crime, and Classism

Minor: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

marlenealina's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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? No

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Hate crime, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Racism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Gaslighting, Medical content, and Medical trauma

labinsky's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense 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

2.5

first off there are just so many content warnings for this book so check that because you think you know what you’re getting into and the contents of the book does NOT match the tone of what’s on the tin.

this book is definitely a page turner, it’s over 400 pages and i finished it in under a day and i’m definitely not a fast reader. but just because it’s a page turner doesn’t make it good or mean that this book is well executed. it’s supposed to be a social commentary about racism and sexism and the way we accept the stuff of horror stories because we live in an unjust society. and it almost does that. but it’s written by a white man who capitalises southern and not Black. 

of course a horror novel is going to be graphic. of course it’s going to be gory and isn’t for the faint-hearted.

but there’s graphic depictions of lynching, rape, statutory rape, suicide, and suicide attempts. the main character’s white, christian adolescent son has an obsession with nazis that is entirely unnecessary, treated as only slightly concerning by his parents, and was stomach-churning for me to read as a jewish person.

and there’s plenty of run of the mill horror genre gore on top of this, which i fully expected going in, but everything else felt like when tarantino writes himself into a movie and his character says the n-slur with the hard r at least a dozen times. 

if someone with the lived experience of racism and sexism had written this book and if it was told from the perspectives of multiple characters (ie, mrs greene), it would have been a better book. it could have made the point it was trying to make. but instead of being a commentary about not only the horror genre but the society we live in, hendrix missed the mark.

in his version, a single vampire, not the world we live in, is identified the source of the violent racism and sexism and it goes away when they slay the vampire.

it falls short and it’s so frustrating because it could be such a good book, but it isn’t.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Murder, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Sexism, and Suicide

arti_27209's review against another edition

dark 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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Hate crime, Rape, and Suicide

Moderate: Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Sexism, and Sexual violence

Minor: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, and Terminal illness