Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

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

19 reviews

apestforwrens's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-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

3.75

Grady Hendrix always makes you think with his writing. Sometimes that thought is " I wouldn't have made that narrative decision" and sometimes that thought is "this is a super creative take on the vampire story".
Hendrix is fantastic at pulling you into his main character's head and forcing you to see why they are reacting to their situation the way they are. This is a horror book and contains some potentially upsetting stuff. I'd definitely recommend checking the trigger warnings before starting if you're worried about that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Rape, Classism, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Suicide attempt, Death, Death of parent, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Vomit, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Dementia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Adult/minor relationship, Terminal illness, Violence, Pedophilia, Murder, Misogyny, Medical trauma, Medical content, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Drug use, Fatphobia, and Drug abuse

cassie7e's review

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

Will fully review after thinking on it. But MAN the men in this book are insufferable!

TW: Sexual assault, death, torture (kinda),  gore

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual violence, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Child death, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Classism

Minor: Racism, Physical abuse, Fatphobia, and Animal death

leahkarge's review

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child death, Classism, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Medical content, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

mrsjoellebell'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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexism, Animal death, Death, Blood, Dementia, Body horror, Child death, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Infidelity, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Rape, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Adult/minor relationship, and Forced institutionalization

greatexpectations77's review

dark funny mysterious 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

This book is INTENSE. Kinda hit all of the trigger warnings on the way down. I was surprised how much I liked the author's characterization of the women, though.

Spoiler

But damn, I was so ready for Patricia's husband to bite the dust. He was on my last nerve.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Racism, Dementia, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Classism, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Death of parent, Violence, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gore, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Pedophilia, Sexual harassment, Cannibalism, Sexual content, Stalking, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Animal death, Bullying, Pregnancy, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Fatphobia, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Body shaming, Confinement, Excrement, Grief, and Vomit

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Cancer, Drug abuse, Abandonment, Abortion, and Drug use

voilajean's review against another edition

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Blood, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Infidelity, Classism, Racism, Drug use, Antisemitism, Body shaming, and Fatphobia

aardwyrm's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-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? Yes

5.0

Like having your teeth pulled out by barbed wire, but they're really polite about it. There is a very scary vampire, but, you know how all good horror is about the unnatural threat AND the real ones? There's more dread in a cocktail party with friendly acquaintances than in most of the scenes with, you know, vampirism. The book juggles its time and place, both as a setting dripping with dread and with a comfortable, sympathetic gentleness that never actually lets anybody off the hook (though Mrs. Green is really much too forgiving in the last act). Does a really interesting job with being horribly physical about the most mundane and most otherworldly manifestations of gore alike. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Violence, Vomit, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Classism, Confinement, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Murder, Pedophilia, Self harm, Racial slurs, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Grief, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

I liked this book, but it's billed as more horror comedy, and I do want to be clear, the horrible parts are gonna hit.

georgiashakey's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Rape, Violence, Murder, Racism, Blood, Dementia, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Pedophilia, and Sexism

Moderate: Death of parent, Fatphobia, Grief, Domestic abuse, Animal death, Classism, Drug use, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Vomit

sarabara's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Frustrating to read. All the women characters were either doormats or victims. I get that authors need their characters to go through a character arc--they have to suffer and struggle in order to grow. But for 300+ pages, I was just annoyed at every woman character. I hate reading about doormats. 

On the one hand, the story is interesting--nostalgic, weird, and gross--all things I like in a book. There is good tension, good stakes, prose is decent. But I don't want to spend time being frustrated. It wasn't enjoyable.
And I understand there are loads of women doormats. But for decades, books were filled with stereotypes of women like this, as though this was all a woman could be. So when a male author decides to write a campy story where the character arc is a female stereotype going from coward to brave, it's cringy. 

And I get that the misogyny perpetuated by the husbands is meant to act as a another source of terror on the protagonist and her friends. The feeling of suffocation and helplessness and gaslighting that the female protagonist feels is intentional, another layer of horror. However the way the author wrote the female characters felt off, in not a good way. They lacked the nuance and strength most women I know have. I wonder how this story would have been written by a southern woman.

Also, there were so many choices by the author that just felt lazy, choices that were transparently intended to create tension but completely unrealistic. I know this is a story about vampires but

Spoiler

when the vampire says "I can feel my spine healing" that is the third opportunity these characters had to cut off his head and didn't.

That is a lazy author choice meant to add to the word count. So annoying. 

This book makes me not trust the author to write women. I don't want to spend time with his characters if this is how he writes them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gaslighting, and Misogyny

Moderate: Classism, Racism, Rape, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Animal death, Dementia, and Fatphobia

arosereads's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.0

This book had potential and completely fell flat. The author tried to make social commentary about race, class, and gender, and the parallel between vampirism and gentrification was promising, but it completely fell flat. While the author was trying to make commentary about misogyny, ultimately the female characters are two dimensional stereotypical personalities rooted in misogyny rather than fully fleshed out characters with development. For a novel that centers the pain of a Black community, it is very much glossed over and ultimately there is only 1 recurring Black character (Mrs. Greene) who doesn’t even get a first name until 2/3 of the way through the book. She is also constantly cleaning up after the white protagonists and doesn’t get centered in the narrative enough.

There are other aspects that made me very uncomfortable too, not limited to the multiple graphic depictions of sexual assault (one of which is a minor), the casual fatphobia/body shaming, the obsession that the son has with N*zis which is never dealt with and only used to show Patricia is a “bad mom” (?????), the trivialization of suicide and mental illness (the symptoms of the “sickness” the kids get seems to parallel addiction and the subject matter isn’t approached with the sensitivity it deserves), and then the demonization of mental health professionals (Carter is HORRIBLE and uses his psychology expertise to manipulate his family and Patricia pulls her daughter from the mental hospital and the novel makes a point of saying it’s against doctors orders etc), and domestic violence is brought up and glossed over and ultimately the butt of a weird joke? Overall, there are a lot of complex and delicate topics covered in this book, and none of them are really done well or appropriately.

I only gave 2 stars because while the pacing was slow, I did really like the author’s descriptions in the horror scenes. The part in the attic was very visceral and gave me chills and the gory scene at the end was well written and descriptive. It’s clear that Grady Hendrix should stick to icky horror stuff and leave the social commentary to those who are more well equipped to handle it properly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Violence

Moderate: Suicide, Domestic abuse, Adult/minor relationship, and Gaslighting

Minor: Misogyny, Antisemitism, Racism, and Fatphobia