A review by emsager190
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

2.0

I have really mixed feelings on this book. It started out really strong, and I was so intrigued by the charming characters, the soft, southern setting, and the underlying feeling of a murder mystery about to occur in their small town. The first half of the book set the tone for this novel as a light, fluffy, and slightly silly 90’s housewives re-telling of Dracula, and I was here for it. But the pacing was really weird in the book, and I felt like it would randomly plummet into grotesque horror without any warning, and then go right back to the light, fluffy southern atmosphere of housewives just being housewives. Before I start on my criticism of this book, I do want to say that I really enjoyed the main character’s voice, the unique ideas this story brought to horror, and the women’s relationships with each other. The writing was well-done. However, I almost DNF this book after the graphic and horrible assault scene; it was slightly shocking after the tone had already been established as a silly, “housewives vs vampire” story. I get it; vampire stories often involve intense sexual scenes, but it just felt out of place in this particular story. Long story short, it was evident a man attempted to write a “women power” book about housewives beating a vampire and used graphic rape/sex scenes to shock his audience. Overall, I didn’t dislike this book, but I also didn’t really like it….