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

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
 I finished this book a week ago, and it's time for a review 

My favorite part of the book? The author's note. 
Hendrix mentions how he wanted to pit Dracula against his mom and how it wasn't "a fair fight."
That got me HOOKED.
I enjoyed the first half of this book well enough, but it takes a TURN in the second half.

One important thing I have to emphasize is this:

CW: gore, violence against women, lynching, rape, murder, gaslighting, sexual violence, domestic abuse, child molesting, and probably more things that I'm forgetting

If you have experienced any of these things or are sensitive to any of the above topics for ANY reason at all, avoid this book. Some of the scenes can be very triggering (you don't have to read the rest of my review if that resonates with you).

Let's address another issue for would-be readers -- are all of these other reviews:

Kai Spellmeier says, "I guess what's helpful to know is that the book is set in America's Deep South in the 80's and 90's. But the author took that as an excuse to push Black characters to the sidelines," and "Of course he had to make unnecessary comments about their breasts and pubes, of course horror wouldn't be horror if female characters didn't experience physical violation of their bodies in the form of rape and abuse. No, your book is not feminist just because your female characters say 'That's sexist,' once. I'm really tired of horror authors relying on tropes like the violation of women's bodies . . . to create discomfort. It's like comedians that can only be "funny" when they ridicule women and marginalized people."

And I have to be honest, I agree with him. 
I wanted to see Black characters actually fleshed out and fighting vampires alongside the women (who took far too long to actually take action).
Also, the book that I had hoped would be a dark comedy that was simply about a bunch of housewives killing vampires turned VERY dark VERY fast.

This isn't to say that the book is horrendously bad, if you're wanting horror, you get horror! But there are so many other books that do the women-killing plot better.

Fiona had this to say: "Maybe if there had been one decent man in the bunch, or if the terrible men hadn't been so universally terrible (seriously, barring one man who was concerned when his wife was sick, there wasn't a decent moment given to ANY of them), then they wouldn't have felt so unrealistic. There's a reason people stay with bad partners, and it's not because they're cartoon villains who have zero dimension."

I wished we'd had a decent man, too, Fiona. That part was rough. 

All in all, I can't give this book any stars. I suppose I could give it 1 star, but there were moments I felt like it was a 5 star book. 

Hope this review helps! You aren't a bad person if you liked this book or a better person if you hated it. Just remember that that you should read what you love and love what you read. You deserve no less than that!

Alternative Reading Recs For:

Actual Monster-Slaying Black Women: Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
Women Who Kill: Bad Men by Julie Mae Cohen & An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten
Vampire Myth That Follows Native American Family: Manmade Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers
 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings