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

I thought this book might be bad at about 30%. By 50% I was sure it was bad. I was shocked at 75% when it somehow got worse. The characters are flat and emotionless.

The main character, a housewife with no personality, and an emotionally abusive husband, befriends what she later find out is a “vampire” but the kind that is a moth I guess since it has a proboscis of all the stupid shit. When she tries to fix it, she is thwarted by toxic masculinity in the form of every single man in town and she makes a suicide attempt. Rather than spend any time with the internal emotional world of this doomed character, the author decides to skip ahead, and in the last 20% of the book attempts to bootstrap some weird sexual tension between this monster and the main character. Don’t worry though, he didn’t forget to include rape! Nor did he forget to include an absolutely plot-point scene where the main character sees her high-school student daughter naked with the vampire. Oh, and one of the characters is obsessed with Nazis. No one has any personality or interests except the one kid who likes to read about nazis.

And I wouldn’t be that mad except that the author decided to include a preface to his book going into his process and how he essentially wrote it to honor his own southern stay at home mom, whom he had apparently ignored when he was a child, shocked as he got older that she was a real person.

This book is terrible.

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krholin's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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_cecilie_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense 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

4.5

If someone had told me this was written by a woman, I would have said 'of course, who else could portray such a story so believably', and that is the highest praise I can give in this context. I came to this book expecting a fast-paced, thrilling and ultimately amusing read like the title suggests. Instead, I was frustrated 80% of the time, cried twice and ranted to three seperate people about the absolute gall this novel had to be actually impactful, thought-provoking and indignation-inducing despite having peaches bleeding from puncture wounds on the cover!

I will not repeat all my rantings and ravings here but compile a few of the points I thought most important. First, I really respect that this story would work almost as well if it had no fantasy in it at all and that it is frustrating but in a good, a real way. Patricia (and the other women in this story) is undervalued, not being believed, made to feel small and helpless and if you have any semblance of empathy it will make you curse and seethe on their behalf while feeling as powerless as them. Not to say that these are unproblematic characters, oh no! If you have a problem with reading about sexist or racist characters then maybe skip this one entirely, especially if you have the feeling that you need to brush up on your media literacy skills. All of these characters are flawed but at the same time distinct, fleshed out and worthy of sympathy.

I loved (hated, but it was a good kind of hate) that all of them had to sacrifice something, that nothing was sunshine and rainbows at the end but they had to deal with real consequences. Also, I'm not saying that chopping up poeple you hate is a great way to deal with them but some just have it coming.

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emilywemily6's review against another edition

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dark funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

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

4.25

I really enjoyed this book and found it to have many more layers than I originally expected. It started off campy and hilarious, but turned more dark and serious. There is definitely both paranormal and more domestic-style horror elements and it felt like I read two different books between the first half and the second. I really appreciated the messaging about how no one listens to POC (specifically black people in this book), women, or children. And no one cares what happens to the black people in this book, many characters turn a blind eye and just say “oh well, that’s too bad” without giving it more thought. I feel like this book could have been a 5 star if it had been written by a black person and seen from Mrs. Greenie’s perspective. She was my favorite character!! I felt like the author did a pretty good job portraying Patricia in this book, but a lot of the other characters were more superficial. This book inspired a lot of unsettled feelings, both related to the paranormal and the relationships between the characters. It felt a little long and drawn out though, especially with Patricia getting back into the James Harris issue. I wish there had been more actual book club time throughout the book and that the friends could have been better friends to each other.

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maymzie's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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depmythmoon's review against another edition

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mysterious 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? It's complicated

2.5

This book was okay. It kept me interested and wanting to know what happened, and how the girls got themselves out of certain situations. It started a bit slow for me at first, but it’s understandable to try and get you to understand their dynamic. It had me feeling emotions, and I am impressed with how this author managed to create a character (I’m not gonna name names, but iykyk he sucks) that I genuinely dislike. Every time he was mentioned, I found myself upset, and that was great.

I will say, the pacing does change noticeably near the final 1/4 of the book. It’s like the author realized they were edging everyone too long with subtle clues, and they finally had to get into the meat of the conflict. The true horror doesn’t begin until near the end as well.

There was a part of the book that made me want to stop reading, and (!!!!!!!!TWTWTWTWTW!!!!!!!) it’s when the author throws the SA in there. It’d be a different story if it served some kind of meaningful purpose, but it really doesn’t. It’s like another “horror” element that didn’t sit well with me. I only finished it because I was really curious about the resolution which…. tbh wasn’t as satisfying as I had hoped.

Overall, it kept me turning pages, and I at least felt something. I’m teetering between a 2.5-3 stars.

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