Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Hendrix places the horrific so well in the everyday- reading this gave me mental whiplash a few times when the scenes’ tones shifted dramatically to become sinister or sometimes genuinely unpleasant. I meant to spread the reading over a week but devoured it in a day! Excellently set against the backdrop of 90s South Carolina and mixes real horrors with fantastical ones.

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tothetomes's review

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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? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

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fanboyriot's review against another edition

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dark slow-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

3.0

I have some mixed feelings about this book. I liked the plot, a bunch of true crime loving housewives starting a book club, reading their way through all the major serial killers. Only to be met with a new guy to town, a guy who doesn't like the sun and who is all too charming once it sets.

It started out well though I would have liked to read more about some of the side characters. I loved Mrs. Greene and would have liked to see more of her. It was at the halfway mark or about there that things kinda went down hill for me. Patricia was slowly being backed into a corner and the more she found out about her charming new neighbor the less people in her life believed her.

There are obviously some major issues within this book I'll add some content warnings that I think apply but I suggest looking them up if you're considering reading this.

The major problems I had with thus book were pretty self-explanatory. The misogyny, sexism, and child molesting really popped off in this book. I understand this took place at a time were housewives were seen as less than human and were it was common for misogyny and sexism. That doesn't mean I wanna read a book about it. And onto the child molesting vampire. What was the point of that? It wasn't like he could only feed off kids. So why add that to the book? It's absolutely disgusting. And lastly what was with all the world war ii stuff? Like dude your kid is drawing a swastika on their notebook and you're not worried?! It just seemed really random to add.

I will say that it ended decently and I really liked the small town setting. The kind of neighborhood that was safe enough to leave your doors unlocked all the time, and where the people who lived there would welcome you with some kind of food only to drop it off and learn your whole life story, that part was written really nicely.

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