The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

Started out well! Suspense building…main characters book club awesome. She accuses vampire, then three years go by. Husbands treat women like second class citizens. Are you kidding me? Three years they let him run around buddy buddy with all their spouses??!! Can’t believe I paid $13.99 for this run down Male ego driven garbage. Wish I could get my money back!

This books tagline is Steel Magnolias meets Dracula and thats probably pretty accurate but Ive never actually finished SM.
Im more familiar with Flannery OConnors works and TSBCGtSV gave me the same feeling when reading it.

It wasnt a light horror romp which is what I expected. It was atmospheric and heavy and the while the antagonist was a monster he certainly wasnt the only one in the book.

I started this book expecting it to be a light read and found myself drawn into a Southern Gothic tale that spent as much time on the horror of familial relationships as it did on the horror of a predator feasting on a vulnerable community.

Southern Gothic literature set out to expose the myth of old antebellum South, and its narrative of an idyllic past hidden by social, familial, and racial denials and suppressions.-the Wikipedia entry that I googled to make sure I didnt misremember my lit education. It describes this book to a T.

TLDR: I loved it. It made me angry. It made me frustrated. It checked every box on the Southern Gothic checklist. Read it.

This book made me so mad! I cannot believe they let 5 years pass before they did anything by then it was too late, kids were dead, khorey was sucked on and poor slick was raped THEN she decided to do something. I personally want to slap each and every character in this book. I’ve finally found a trope I hate. Medical husbands controlling their wives and dismissing them as crazy. I wish someone had killed Carter that slimey rat bastard. The fire was good, a little scare and suspense. I liked the story and the new alien vampire but it could have been better. I was frustrated the whole time, angry 90% of it. I still recommend it because Grady is a greater author, not every story is a hit all the time. I can’t say I LOVED it but it’s a good book. Still fuming, ask again later.

You won’t find a plot summary here, I hate spoilers. Suffice to say I picked this book because a review called it quirky. I bit. I should have looked at other reviews and I might have passed on the Stephen King reference alone. However, the book starts slow, builds in intensity of horror and is gripping to say the least. If I were you, I wouldn’t start reading this at night, you are not going to sleep until you finish it. Quirky yes, horrifying, sure. Well worth it. Ignore all Stephen King references.

This book was infuriating because the main character, Patricia, and her book club friends were the simplest ladies I’ve ever read. There was no back bone. The male characters walked all over them until the last three chapters of the book. If I had not been reading this for a book club I may have stopped. This was not the nineties! Try a few decades back.

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