The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Product Information

And he's the screenwriter behind Mohawk, which is probably the only horror movie about the War of 1812 and Satanic Panic.

Side note, it just so happens, which I didn't know going in, that this is voiced by my favorite narrator of all time, Bahni Turpin, who is an absolute goddess! There is an artful way to weave comedic satire with heavy topics like racism, misogyny, and sexism, but Hendrix just didn't quite get there imho. I do respect the guy for the attempt, but man, I expected this to be so much better than it was. Except for the part where she waited around blaming Patty and friends for not stepping up faster. It just didn't ring true to me that someone like her would have even thought to lean on a group of ladies who were made out of paper mache. It seems as though this whole vampire situation could have been taken care of years and years beforehand if she'd gotten a couple of her friends together and gone after him. The dynamics amongst the ladies in the Book Club gave me life! I adored their friendships, Southern charm and humor, as well as the early-90s setting. there are definitely standout scenes that get intense. like v.c. andrews, everything that happens in the attic is gross and wrong and full of things going into places they have no business going. i’ve always had squeam when it comes to eye-horror, but this is my first time ever squirming over ear-horror, which was not the ear-biting referenced in that opening quote. you'll know it when you read it.The southern book club's guide to slaying vampires, 2020, ISBN 978-1-0941-3695-0, OCLC 1147251774 , retrieved 2020-07-11 They also read In Cold Blood, Helter Skelter, and, after James takes over and they get overrun by men, Tom Clancy (who Patricia hates). Then a mysterious stranger comes around. He’s handsome, a helpless man stranded in a strange county as he has to deal with his mother’s death. Patricia helps (of course! What good, god-fearing woman wouldn’t aid a stranger in need?) and James Harris finds himself with an ID, a bank account, and an invitation for dinner.

And I get that a lot of this book is supposed to be satire. Satire can be a wonderful tool to expose and criticize things like misogyny, racism, and sexism but I didn't feel that Hendrix was being critical with these characters or with this story all all. Instead, he put all of these things on display and just leaves them hanging there for us to gawk at. And yeah, ok fine. BUT... can satire truly be effective when it doesn't challenge and, instead, perpetuates the awfully negative stereotypes it is supposed to contradict? Devil in Plain Sight: James is one of these as Patricia becomes more and more aware of this; it's suggested, in fact, that he used the boundaries of polite society to achieve this, rather than his actual vampiric powers. Then there's Mrs. Greene. She's the lady who helps out with Patricia's senile mother-in-law and eventually ends up working for the cleaning company the vampire dude hires. She's also the only woman in the entire book who knows what's going on. The current discussion is about Patricia's newest neighbor, James Harris. He's handsome, charismatic and a bit mysterious. Patricia thinks he might be too mysterious. Something just doesn't ring true with James. Wasn't Ted Bundy handsome, charismatic and mysterious? And this book had the dumbest, most slow-witted characters I have ever read. When presented with evidence of something strange going on, they just refused to believe, over and over. Sure, in real life, if someone told me there's a vampire loose and they had evidence, I would be skeptical. But this is fiction! I don't want to spent 80% of the book reading about non-believers doubting and naysaying. What a downer.

Reader Reviews

So basically I had been expecting a different kind of vampire book one a little light and fluffy (if that's possible with a vampire story) and a character with a great voice. The voice is there and the light part is for the first half. Love the cover by way, great construction and graphics. Grady Hendrix is the author of the novels Horrorstör, about a haunted IKEA, and My Best Friend's Exorcism, which is like Beaches meets The Exorcist, only it's set in the Eighties. He's also the author of We Sold Our Souls, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, and the upcoming (July 13!) Final Girl Support Group! a b Codega, Linda H. (2020-04-07). "The Monsters They Married Are Men: The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix". Tor.com . Retrieved 2020-07-11. Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her ambitious husband is too busy to kiss her good-bye in the morning, her kids are wrapped up in their own lives, and she’s always a step behind on thank-you notes and endless chores. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime and suspenseful fiction. Mrs. Greene's character is treated so poorly it is disgusting. Nobody can convince me that Mrs. Greene isn't the true hero of this story. First of all, she had the most likable personality and the most sense out of all the women in this book. Second of all, Mrs. Green is the one who steps up and does all the dirty work at the end while Patricia is basically out of the picture.

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. You can listen to free, amazing, and did I mention free podcasts of his fiction on Pseudopod. He also does a podcast called Super Scary Haunted Homeschool.

Fabulous dialogue. “Between us we’ve been cleaning houses for eighty years,” says one woman to another as they contemplate cleaning up an extravagant bloody crime scene. “I think we’re up to the challenge.” as a preview, here’s a (relatively) cute version of aural invasion. it’s cute if you think, like i did at first, that it’s a ring-tailed lemur in some sort of cave but then OH NOOOOO! This one is not my normal story and one that was not on my radar to read, but after seeing how much fun some TS were having in a group read, that fear of missing out on a fun discussion had me joining in. That overthinker in me almost ruined the story, and that over-analyzer saved it for me along with my curiosity. I struggled at first with a few of those the gory scenes and with a darkly disturbing part to the story and almost did not finish, but I had to know why so many readers loved this one. Once the story hit that major turning point, everything started to become clear to me as to why! Thank you, Grady Hendrix, for adding to my already infinite TBR with some of these True Crime titles. Alternative Character Interpretation: An In-Universe example with Maryellen's take on The Bridges of Madison County, where she sees Robert Kincaid as a cunning predator rather than a romantic lead.