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

3.0

"We're a book club. What are we suppposed to do? Read him to death? Use strong language?"

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This book is about a group of moms in an unofficial book club with an unusual taste for the dangerous genres. One day, there's a new neighbor, and children started to disappear. One of the members, Patricia, gets even more suspicious and suspects that their new neighbor is a serial killer. Little did she know, she will find that he was someone more dangerous.

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TW: Rape, suicide

Rating: ★★★

Okay, when I first heard about this in Noelle's channel, I was like, "A book club against a vampire? Sign me up please!" and it was really amazing at first! Like, omg I thought I was going to love it so much. But then...

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The things that I like

☽ The concept. I am entirely sold on this thing. A mom book club against a supernatural being? Oh, yes! Come on, you can just say it's about a book club and I would buy it. It's kind of a hard to come by kind of book.

☽ The writing. *chef's kisses* Finally! I found another writer whose writing is not only bearable but I did actually like. Even though there were some parts that I did not particularly enjoy, I recognize this author's skill in putting images in your mind. One moment, I am laughing. The next, my stomach is curdling with disgust.

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The things that I DID NOT like

☾ It's not as exciting as I thought it would be. The first few parts were really, really good. I could not stop reading it. But the plot did thicken as much as I thought and. I was kind of left hanging. It's like I'm in a five-course meal and I didn't get to dessert.

☾ Repetitive. Things kind of got slow in the middle of the book wherein Patricia was trying to convince everybody. I was honestly like, "How come she's the only one suspicious of this person?" That's nuts. And she's talking to everybody and explaining the same things over and over again, and honestly, it was kind of tiring.

☾ Anti-climactic. I thought I would see some badass action, the book will be filled with shotguns and everything... but it didn't kind of go there. I didn't like the ending and how easy it seemed. It felt like it was long overdue because apparently, they could have done that years ago.

☾ Small note: I know that we have Mrs. Greene in this book, but I didn't like how their community was portrayed so helplessly. As some other people noted in their reviews, we don't need another White savior story.

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In sum: I'd still definitely recommend this to people despite my rating. I'm sure others would love it better than I would. I'd also check out the author's other works as I like the way he writes. Hopefully, this isn't his best yet. I'd be waiting for his future books.