Reviews tagging 'Dementia'

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

333 reviews

electronaut6's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Dementia, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Misogyny, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Medical trauma, and Suicide attempt

perfectcupoftea's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Dementia, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

ldyb's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Things to know: this book is satire & commentary. Never in my life has it been this clear! I found several of the juxtaposed phrases to be so CLEAR that I highlighted them. I hope no one reads this book at face value - there is absolutely something pointed about almost every sentence, every chapter, every character. 

TW - In addition, there is gore, there is sexual predation and assault against women and children, there is suicide and death. A lot of this is graphically described, which is rarely necessary, and remains the flaw of the horror category. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Classism

kayla_kamldecker's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

This book cleverly combined horror, suspense, humor, and social commentary. I was surprised to learn that the author is a white man as this book directly addresses the way white people dismiss and take advantage of black people, the way men dismiss and take advantage of women, and the way money rules all. 

Unfortunately the first half of the book was incredibly slow and difficult for me to get through. The book picked up more around the 60% mark. The pacing was uneven, and many scemes/chapters were superfluous. This might be a good book to study in an English class or discuss in a book club, but I likely will not read it again. 

I think this book would be excellent adapted to the big screen. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Physical abuse, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Dementia, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Pedophilia

fiona_farrell's review against another edition

mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Drug abuse, Mental illness, Dementia, Grief, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Animal death and Abortion

kates_books's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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? No

4.25

This book is definitely horror. To be fair, it is clearly labeled as such, but I was still shocked by the graphic gore and terrible scenes. I maybe would have liked a trigger warning on the first page about the level of gore and rape scenes. Despite my struggle to read the horror, I really enjoyed the book. It was a compelling read that touched on feminism, class, racism, and community. I also loved the deep dive to the vampire genre - loved that the entry point and the research the book club did was reading vampire books. Also loved the setting in South Carolina - it felt like being in a true Southern home. 

I loved that Patricia got a divorce in the end! Her husband was so condescending and absent and didn't value her at all. When he said something about her having time to do something because she's just a housewife - my blood was boiling! The only part of the ending I didn't like was that Slick died from her rape injuries - so sad.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, Dementia, Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

sarah_bettina's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Self harm, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Dementia, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

meganparsec's review against another edition

sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Cannibalism, Outing, and Gaslighting

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