Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

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

409 reviews

turrean's review against another edition

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? No

4.0

A terrifying, thrilling read. There are horror scenes aplenty, but the author also shows us a devastatingly accurate—and equally horrifying—depiction of how sexism and racism distort everything in our society. Some of the most chilling parts of the narrative deal with “real world” societal issues: the men in the story belittle and demean the women they (supposedly) love, and in the process, nearly destroy themselves and their community; doctors, police officers, other town authorities, and plenty of “good” Christian folks are utterly indifferent to a threat to black children. 

I rolled my eyes every time the author referred to a brassiere instead of a bra. Is that a male author thing? Or is that a southern thing?  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

sannesbooks's review against another edition

dark 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

4.25

This was a really enjoyable read. It was easy to read and fast to get through. The book started kinda slow, but once you are halfway you can't stop reading. I appreciated the time jumps in between. I think this was a good way to make the pacing right.

I liked the characters in this book. My only complaint is that the women in the bookclub had kind of the same personalities. This made it sometimes hard to follow, and you will mix up characters. 

I loved the depiction of womenhood / friendship. It was frustrating to read about the sexism and misogyny, but I think it is realistic for that time period and it calls for reflection. It was interesting to see how different characters responded to injustice and misogyny. I also appreciated the description of rich vs poor neighbourhood and white vs colored people, discrimination that is still happening today. I enjoyed to see how the characters reacted to the differences in treatment. 

Patricia's son, Blue, had an obsession with Nazis. I kinda think it is weird to include that because it didn't do anything for the storyline. I thought and wished this was a set up for something bigger but it wasn't and therefore I think this is an unnessecary 'story line'. I think the writer just want to add something to make the kid seem creepy but at the end of the book he portrait as creepy, so there was basically no point.

Another thing that was, in my opinion, only included for shock value was the thigh blood sucking. The vampire only drank blood from the inner thighs of people. In the book, it also clearly states that this blood sucking makes its victims sexually aroused. Also, the victims were naked during this for no reason. Unnessecary in my opinion, especially because his victims were minors! There was also no explaination for why it should have to be done this way, so I think it was just unnessecary.
 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Blood, Murder, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Animal death, Racism, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and War

bittie_bee's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Rape, Blood, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Child death and Suicide

Minor: Domestic abuse and Physical abuse

katlynkatt's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death and Racism

Minor: Domestic abuse

m4rtt4's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This was a lot darker and sadder than I had expected, but I ate it up nonetheless. Very few books have made me feel as many emotions as this one did: joy, anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and empathy can all be felt through this story, just to name a few. The husbands made me want to bang my head against a wall!! Misogyny really was one of the horror elements. The gore went a bit overboard at times, but despite the strange mixture of emotions and clashing images, I'd highly recommend this book! The trigger warnings should not be taken lightly, though.

+ Bahni Turpin's narration was absolutely brilliant!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Gaslighting

herelieshenry's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

3.5

This book is written very well, does a good job at establishing the atmosphere of dread and discomfort, and also got me invested enough that the conflict was often incredibly frustrating. I do think there is a lot of reasonable criticism of the way this book handles social issues; I have no problem with a book discussing social issues and trying to make a statement, so I don’t think it’s a problem that misogyny and racism are major factors at play in this book, but I do think they could have been handled better, particularly around it starting to tread into white savior territory (though I would call this story failed white saviorism more than anything because

of the conclusion wherein the white women only stop the vampire when he’s moved on to their own children, which I think could have been written more overtly critically too

). Ultimately, I get what Hendrix was trying to do, and the book is well-constructed, but it leaves something to be desired. I’m interested in how the TV adaptation will work with the material and hopefully improve upon it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Racism, and Rape

Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Animal death, Infidelity, Terminal illness, and Death of parent

Gentrification

snslayer's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Dementia, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Toxic friendship

coldheartedbirch's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

i was expecting dark and gorey, but lovable moms fighting evil. what i got was actually one of the worst books i’ve read in years with ZERO likable characters. there’s really only one successful creepy/scary moment (aside from how their husbands treat them) as he’s prone to extremely overdone and campy horror scenes that were more laughable than anything. 

rampant sexism, crazy slow book into a way-too-fast, terrible wrap up, lots of things that make no sense, just not good. read Anything else. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Forced institutionalization and Antisemitism

mercurysflame's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad 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? No

3.0

read in one day because i wanted to know what happens but it was a bit of a slog at times if that makes sense. it was definitely entertaining but not in a way that left me super satisfied. 

also, it was very clear to me that these women were written by a man. the characters were just lacking a certain depth. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, and Racism

caiterlenbachreads's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail