Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

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

125 reviews

ttben10's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

To begin, i will give my personal standpoint so that my review can be understood from that perspective. I am a black girl, who grew up on six mile in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina… my family settling there post slavery, going further back than can be documented. The story of Ms. Greene is the story of many women in my family, and the portrayal of the area is exactly how it seems, even to this day— to an extent. I will touch on that later. This book does more than ring true to me, it paints the picture clearly for things i have experienced or heard of loved ones experiencing and yes it’s unnerving but it is the truth.

TSBCGTSV is set mainly in the Old Village, a wealthy and predominantly white area of Mount Pleasant where everyone knows everyone, until they don’t. Grady jumps right into the action and never lets up. I had to force myself to put it down as my breaks ended and i needed to get back to work. There are some truly unsettling scenes with gore descriptions that make you feel like you’ve turned on a horror movie. It’s funny at times, especially when you can relate… the characters can be attached to someone i know and i can picture their drives as they navigate the city or understand why the use of a location was for jest. I’m going to break this up into some of the main topics of discussions:

Racism: I think a lot of people’s issue with this book is that they want Grady to expand on his mention of class/race/gentrification in a serious way that does not make sense for this book. The point of mentioning these topics is to have an accurate representation of the time and setting… there IS no solution and these things STILL happen. The gentrification of six mile is not just a story plot line it is real life and the one fictional Gracious Cay is the reality of multiple originally black neighborhoods being torn down and built up with houses we could never afford… the trailer home i grew up in is now perpendicular to a new neighborhood that has 3 story homes. Ms. Greene is pictured as “the help” because those are one of the only jobs a black woman could have had at that time and the stories told by my mother and grandmother are no different. The kids in six mile were not stereotypical mean black kids, they were my cousins and i who would run to get our uncles when there was a car we’d never seen before coming down our road because there was no reason to unless you lived in the trailers. The lack of care that the housewives showed for the children and families of that area are quintessential for understanding the racism that takes place ESPECIALLY when there is a class divide. Grady did not mention these to be vile, he mentioned them to have you understand what life was/is like for the people in this area. The only thing in this topic that i was put off by was the antisemitism that Blue became obsessed with, i understand it was to help us see the damage his trauma caused but it could’ve been done in another way.
Sexism:
Does Grady struggle with writing women from time to time? yes. Can it be seen as misogyny, the way he writes the housewives? sure! Was i able to connect each character in the book to someone i know in real life because of how accurate the southern housewife depiction was? absolutely. What i did not enjoy was the gaslighting, i think its a tired trope but i hate that i can still defend it because it makes sense why it happens.
Rape:
This is one thing i simply could not ever excuse, i do not agree with his use of rape in this story especially
since it was with a minor. Was NOT needed and could’ve been left out entirely. The same with Slick and how she was pressed to relive the moment for the sake of investigation.

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lefthandlou's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

CONTENT WARNINGS FOR PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING

I thought this book was fantastic. Definitely a hard read, especially in certain points, and it had some really gross sections, but what a payoff! The book takes on some heavy themes: racism, the way white communities ignore the suffering of Black communities and they ways they contribute to it, the damage of patriarchal societies and restrictive gender roles. The use of a vampire tale to tell that story was genius, IMO, as is the symbolism of the ending. 

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snslayer's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Good but absolutely brutal to read as a woman. Perfectly captures white women at their worst and at their best and the lives we ruin along the way. I had to put it down for a bit in the middle because I was getting so worked up about the husbands. 

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butchybats's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Genuinely scary, super tense, and I could not put it down!

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ykpachavi's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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quercine's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was really tough for me to read and if you are a person who might need to be aware of things before hand, please read content warnings. I would absolutely never recommend it to anyone who is not prepared to a) read not only gore but every day life disturbing content and b) really think about how this book turns Dracula on its head in terms of what a vampire represents in culture.
In Dracula, the monster related horror is just a symbol for xenophobia. In this book, the monster related horror is a symbol for how you can let someone into your lives and neighborhood and that person can truly be a person in your community. Except they have unnatural urges that harm your children and “Uncle James” is actually a predator.
This book tackles a lot of real world issues such as misogyny and racism, and how white women can suffer from misogyny but still perpetuate racism. This book also tackles the reality that people of color face in the under reporting, under investigating etc of crimes against them. I absolutely urge you to read with caution if that’s not something you want to engage with. The racism in the world of the 90s era southern US is vibrant on the page.

I’m used to vampire feeding as a symbol for
sex and sexual assault.
I wasn’t entirely prepared for the way this vampire feeds to essentially BE
child sexual assault and for how he would create a new vampire to be rape.
It was shocking, and I stewed for a long time on whether or not I think
Slick’s rape or even Destiny and Korey’s grooming and assault
were necessary (especially so explicitly). Ultimately, I think because this vampire tale is about
letting someone you trust near your community and that trust being betrayed, it fits and it isn’t another example of a male writer using that kind of violence as shock value. But as a survivor myself, it was very difficult.

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miilk's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes

4.25

I love it when the vampires are truly monstrous in every way. And I loved reading about all of the women and their lives and their faults and their struggles and and and bc everything with them was GREAT. Also Patricia is such an excellent protagonist. 

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katenovah's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75


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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Much better than I thought it was going to be, mostly because I found the title so ridiculous. Turns out that the book was a lot of fun to read and that the title is very apropos. It was a little longer than I would’ve liked - I would’ve removed some of the events, maybe even whole chapters, because the first third of the book had me rolling my eyes. But I had enjoyed How to Sell a Haunted House, so I stuck with it, and I’m so glad I did.

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themdash's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Dear god please check the content warnings.

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