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

challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book is written very well, does a good job at establishing the atmosphere of dread and discomfort, and also got me invested enough that the conflict was often incredibly frustrating. I do think there is a lot of reasonable criticism of the way this book handles social issues; I have no problem with a book discussing social issues and trying to make a statement, so I don’t think it’s a problem that misogyny and racism are major factors at play in this book, but I do think they could have been handled better, particularly around it starting to tread into white savior territory (though I would call this story failed white saviorism more than anything because
of the conclusion wherein the white women only stop the vampire when he’s moved on to their own children, which I think could have been written more overtly critically too
). Ultimately, I get what Hendrix was trying to do, and the book is well-constructed, but it leaves something to be desired. I’m interested in how the TV adaptation will work with the material and hopefully improve upon it.
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