The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community. (link)

Review: 4/5

I know I said in my last review that I don’t typically read a lot of horror, but after discovering Grady Hendrix and his comedic approach to classically scary monsters and characters, it awakened this love for comedic horror within me.

I didn’t love this book as much as I loved My Best Friend’s Exorcism, and I’m gonna be completely transparent about that. However, after some internal searching, I realize that I probably didn’t like it as much because the characters just weren’t as relatable for me. For MBFE, it was relatable because we’ve all had friend break ups, been through middle school, and had a strange and out-of-touch fascination for the 80s… right? We’ve all been that awkward person in middle school. We've all gone through phases of insecurity - but I have yet to go through the phase of a 30 or 40-year-old mom in a mainly white suburb in the 90s and finding that insecurity that was specifically mentioned in the book. I think the book was just a lot more niche in how it displayed the main characters, but I thought it was really cool to see these 34-year-old moms in the 90s take on this role of vampire hunter. How niche! How different! It was a nice change from hearing about a 17 year old falling in love with a 550 year old fae…

One thing that I really do love about Hendrix’s writing is, when I’m reading, I can’t decipher whether there really is a monster (like a demon or a vampire) or is this a metaphor for insecurity or typical life’s ups-and-downs? Is a vampire a euphemism for insecurity that’s shining through in someone who is trying to escape their real life so badly that they’re blaming it on something that doesn’t exist? I really love that internal reflection that this causes and I just think it’s really cool to not know the reality of a book you’re invested in. It kind of keeps you on your toes, keeps you guessing, it keeps you really engaged and intrigued. It did for me, at least.

I also know that most people love an unlikely underdog winning story, so this was executed well for this storyline. There’s always a group or a clique that people want to be in, and it just might be unobtainable to gain access. But once our main character found the unlikely friendship and reliability of the outcast women her age, she found her true family. The people that really would back up even when no one else provided that in her life… is anyone else tearing up? Why don’t I have friends like that?

I also liked how you didn’t really know what was truly going on until the very end, especially with her kids being portrayed as troubled and classic rebels on teenage youth. I didn’t know who was really the target, or why the “vampire” was targeting them. I love a big reveal at the end of a book, so that was something that I had really high hopes for, didn’t know what direction it would go in, and still was not disappointed. High remarks from me! I’m often disappointed with books.

I loved the way that Hendrix depicted vampires. They were vampires, don’t get me wrong; pale skin, fangs, can’t go out in the sun. BUT I loved the unique difference that Hendrix used to illustrate that this vampire is a lot more sinister than other ones that we’ve seen typically in popularized media. The use of sexual analogy that I think was used by placing the vampire bites near explicitly sexual body parts really heightened that analogy of vampire to sexual predator. I also thought the whole black thing coming out of the throat was really interesting because I had never even imagined something like that. Like, okay Venom, do your worst but in a grunge predator way!

Another thing that I really like about Hendrix’s writing style is that moment where the narrator loses everything. The main character has to fight back from where they’ve lost everything and fight for what they know is right, and I think that’s something that I love. Of course, as a main character you think you would fight for the right thing, but it’s so easy to give up when times are hard or when people just give up on you. I think the tenacity of the main characters and the unfamiliar friendship that the main character faces is really amazing and well written. So that’s why I flew through this book. I thought it was a really great read and I really recommended it to anyone who has trouble with horror and kind of wants to jump into the genre. It’s very camp. It’s very funny. It’s very scary in a real way. However, this is a trigger warning for extreme gross and descriptive gore, sexual assault, and domestic abuse.

I think it goes without saying that this playlist will be in the style of modern yet 90s grunge. I mean what else would a 90s vampire book reflect? Throw on ripped flannel and black skinny jeans and choker and let’s get the show on the road shall we?

Spotify: LINK