Reviews with content warning for Classism - The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

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

159 reviews

maralvarez's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark 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? Yes

2.0

Content Warnings

madyou's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.5

I’m not sure how to rate this book because on one hand I felt a lot of strong emotions. There was disgust, annoyance, anger…but on the other hand I feel like that was the point. It’s confusing me that this takes place in the 90s and the women were watered down to being housewives. It would make more sense if this took place earlier if the author wanted to write about housewives. Then again, their town sounds pretty small so perhaps they just didn’t want change like the rest of the world was doing.

The husbands annoyed me to no end, and so did Patricia’s children. I also felt like the main antagonist could have been so much more if only he didn’t feed the way he did. I wasn’t ready for that but that’s my fault for going into this book without reading the trigger warnings. Either way, this book was gripping despite its slow pace.

Content Warnings

jennshelfishlife's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.0

"Sometimes she craved a little danger. And that was why she had book club."

Patricia Campbell has an uneventful life in the Charleston area, where she takes care of her family, and her joy in life is meeting with the other ladies in the Old Village for their book club. While at book club, they discuss true crime novels filled with violence and other dastardly deeds. And then, her life changes one evening when she walks around the side of her dark house to retrieve the trash bins. Patricia is attacked, and a mystery begins to unfold, as well as other horrors in her small neighborhood and the rural area called Six Mile. Patricia is determined to discover the root cause of all the evil and runs into several roadblocks, primarily due to her husband and his old-fashioned friends. She loses her friends while continuing her probe into the popular but frightening new neighbor, James Harris. Will Patricia be able to stop the horrors, believe me, there are some horrifying events, Ann was particularly frightful, and the attic scene was so creepy I released a scream.
I recommend The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires to fans of vampire books and horror.
PS I love the description, Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula, spot on!
PSS The audio narration was well executed; kudos to Bahni Turpin, she made this creepy novel even more hair-raising!

Content Warnings

atlas0fstars's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A

4.25

Content Warnings

pumpkinbisque's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

i support women’s wrongs!!!!!!!

seriously though this book was so fun i loved it <3 looked up the author and was literally shocked to see that a man wrote it so uh congrats mr. hendrix this was a well-written book from the perspective of a woman. would recommend to horror fans and those who are tired of seeing “women’s work” devalued.

ps fuck all the husbands except horse i <3 horse

Content Warnings

jasper_wildlife's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous 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? It's complicated

4.0

I wouldn't call this his best work, but Hendrix has done something amazing in this book. Once again, I am floored by his ability to write women in ways that I've never seen another male author accomplish. As someone from South Carolina, I love seeing the places I know represented in fictional horror that doesn't revolve around ghosts. This is such a unique take on vampires and I absolutely adore it.

Content Warnings

zzara's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

I was really pushing my usual genres reading this book because I don't usually read horror. It was by and large enjoyable and appropriately scary, particularly

Patricia's isolation due to her recognition that James Harris is a vampire while her husband, book club friends and their husbands refuse to believe her.

The book is a really interesting exploration of the inner lives of southern housewives, and how their role is understood by the men and society around them.

Given this, I found it very strange that the book was written by a man. I read the first 150 pages or so under the misconception that the author was a woman, and I found it quite believable that it would have been written by a woman because the book is so focused on the female experience.

The book is fundamentally concerned with whether men believe the claims of women against other men, and the way that women are violated - psychologically and sexually - by men.

I get that the author might have wanted to explore femininity, but it seems very strange to me that he chose to do it by making all of the characters who we care about, whose inner lives are presented, women. It honestly creeped me out that it was written by a man. Because the sucking of blood is a sexual act in this book, there are various instances of sexual assault, including

a sexual relationship between the adult vampire and Patricia's seventeen year old daughter.

I found this to be the most disgusting part of this book, which I guess is the point in the horror genre. But still, it just felt really gross that this violation was written by a man. Moreover,

Patricia's sacrifice of herself as a substitute for her daughter

is a unique brand of motherly sacrifice - bodily sacrifice - and to me it's just really weird that it was written by a man. I probably would have rated it higher if this wasn't such an issue for me, but I couldn't stop thinking about it as I was reading it. The vibe was just really weird.

Content Warnings