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

adventurous 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? Yes

3.5

How did our girl Miss Mary raise a bitch like Carter? I enjoyed this book as a whole, but there were quite a few slower paced moments which made sense, but dragged on a little bit. Specifically, with everyone taking so long to believe Patricia. That being said, some of the gory scenes made up for it; there was some fantastic horror locked away in here.
I’ll say two of my favourite scenes were the rats killing Miss Mary (RIP queen fly high) and Patricia hiding in the attic and the cockroach crawling in her ear. Made me physically cringe (and reminded me of that one lady on I’m a Celebrity who got a cockroach up her nose). That being said, I think the women of this storys suffering was broadcast in a very explicit way, compared to the main villains death. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not signing up to be taken apart, but the book writes it in a way that seems more palatable than the other two instances. That being said, I loved the detail of Patricia saying she still felt like she could hear his body moving in his grave. P.S I didn’t only read for the gore lol!


I also wish they had more clarity on the vampire lore of this book, as we have our one villainous vampire and seemingly thats the only insight we get, with very little confirmed on what his vampiric nature allows him to do. I say this specifically as the ‘feeding’ scenes are so different to what we imagine for a classic vampire novel, and I wish it was expanded on more, although it makes sense as it’s from the perspective of Patricia, who has no way to know.
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