Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - Guía del club de lectura para matar vampiros

TLDR; I’m not really into horror or thrillers so take my review with a grain of salt. Improbable plot device, flat characters, little humour. Just enough interest to keep reading, though I was thinking of dnfing at the 60% point out of frustration.

Mr Hendrix tells the story as a third person narrator from the pov of the female main character. Thus we know almost nothing about the other characters, particularly the male ones. We learn almost nothing about the past of the fmc. Descriptions of places and things are also light. On the other hand the book felt too long to me, I was almost skimming when I got 60% to 80% in.

I have a few complaints about the novel but I’m keeping it to three.

One; If you come home from work one evening and find your elderly female neighbour is viscously attacking your spouse. In fact the neighbour has bitten your spouse’s earlobe off. When your spouse starts voicing suspicions about that neighbour’s great nephew newly arrived to take care of his now deceased great aunt do you ignore your spouse and form a friendship and business partnership with the nephew? Or do you encourage the local police to keep an eye on him and keep him out of your house away from your spouse and children?

Do your suspicions lessen or increase when a rat army invades your nice home and kills your mother?

Secondly why is every male in this book either non-existent or a jerk? Yes, I do complain when author’s female characters are poorly drawn. This book has the opposite problem and I’m not happy about that either.

Finally, there was humour in the first 11 chapters.. The humour disappeared with the rats in chapter 12 and never returned. (Do not read chapter 12 if you have musophobia.) While I wasn’t expecting a Christopher Moore style novel the humour of the first chapters did help to humanise characters some.

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tiernanhunter's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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lydiaj1020's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

I have complicated feelings about this book. After digesting this book, I’d say the author is a very skilled writer but a questionable content decision-maker. This book contains all the TW: CSA, SA/R, etc.

I read this book because it was nominated in my book club. It was marketed as a dark comedy, but I was surprised that after the first chapter it was just dark. The suspense was well done, and it had me whip through the book in just a few days (unusual for me).

Some of the plot points are truly horrific, but the author does not present them with gravity, even for events that lead to death. The descriptions of certain traumatic scenes were *choices.* Especially regarding children.

I found the ending all around underwhelming. After the battles Patty leads, this plan felt demeaning in so many ways. I fear the author meant it to be an empowering moment for women. I imagine most people don’t pick up this book for the social commentary, but the characters and character dynamics left me disappointed. (Why is this book club friends? Why would Mrs. Greene plead with these white women? Etc.)

This book does suspense really well though. There were scenes that horrified me in a good way where I couldn’t put the book down. I’d recommend this book for a popcorn read— filling but not nutritious.

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andarnauren's review against another edition

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Diverse cast of characters? No

3.25

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lolarosekm's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

The most satisfying part of the ending was Patty divorcing Carter & then their children choosing Patty over him

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cinnamonroll42's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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kaylin830's review against another edition

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1.0

I was incredibly disappointed in this book. The beginning made it seem like we were going to be reading about badass mothers who don't take crap, who protect their children, who are afraid but are there for their kids when needed. Instead, we got spineless mothers who let their narcissistic asshat husbands walk all over them. The cherry on top is that it's only white women. I want a book about mothers of all races and backgrounds who want to bond over their love of books and the love of their children.

This book is set in the '90s. Tell me why these white women are terrified to go into a predominantly black neighborhood. Get a grip. You are there to talk to a specific person, not walk around willy-nilly. I don't even have words for how idiotic this is. You can not argue that the setting is the real world because the main villain is a vampire. That's fantasy, so make your world fit the prompt.

The biggest issue that I have with this book is not just that it's racist, but it is so disgustingly pedophilic. This vampire has a strict diet of black children. Hendrix could have made this because he feeds off of children to maintain his youth... except for the fact that his bite is "orgasmic". You're telling me that a book with MASSIVE racism, misleading summaries, and scenes of the vampire feeding off of children down by their genitalia, made it through a slew of revisions, editors, and publishers? This book is vile. I wish I had DNF'ed but I gave the book the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the mothers grow a backbone? Maybe they save the children out in Six Mile? Maybe just maybe they can defeat the vampire to save their town. Nope. Nada. You know the book is bad when the old senile woman is the most sane.

This book does not deserve to be sold out of my collection, it deserves to be thrown in a raging dumpster fire so that at least its death represents the contents.

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annekdotes's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I don’t usually read horror novels, but this one grabbed my attention. In the introduction, the author explains that he wrote this because he wanted to see how a fight between his mother and Dracula would play out (I paraphrase, but that’s the gist), ending with the phrase “It’s not a fair fight.” That made me *very* excited and the book didn’t disappoint. The setting reminded me of a Celeste Ng novel, which I loved, and I got completely pulled into this horrifying story. I think the narrator of the audiobook also had a considerable hand in that (Bahni Turpin is the best out there!). The vampire dude was a terrifying villain, but the true horror was the misogyny these women had to deal with.

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