The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires Review
*spoilers*
Here is my review for @readerbookclub, finally. I feel very conflicted about this book. It succeeded in making me uncomfortable, because there was very little happiness to be found. Apparently it’s some kind of companion piece to Grady Hendrix’ My Best Friend’s Exorcism (which I didn’t read), though it’s not a sequel. The author’s note also tells us, that the author wanted to pit Dracula against his mom. Instead the premise became,; what if you know that your neighbour is a vampire, but your friends don’t believe you, and your cheating husband gaslights you at every turn. Also, your children hate you, because you tried to overdose on pills that one time before the book suddenly time-jumped 3 years. So…
What were your expectations before reading the book? Did it meet them? Would you consider re-reading it in the future?
I wanted a book club and vampires, so it delivered. I thought it would center more on those things though, and instead the story followed Patricia. There was a little backstory on the vampire, because Miss Mary (Carter’s mother) remembered him from when she was a young girl. Then she got murdered by rats, because she had this old picture, where James Harris was on, so she had to die.
I’m not sure if I would re-read it. It wasn’t really amazing, there weren’t even quotes that were really memorable.
How did you feel about the characters? What did you like about them? What didn’t you like? If there’s one character you could meet, who would they be and why?
We experienced the story through Patricia’s eyes, and her life is quickly going from bad to worse. She was a strange combination of strength and weakness. She let herself be walked over, then put herself in harm’s way on a hunch.
I probably liked Grace the most. I don’t know why, cause she was so prickly and aloof (okay, that’s probably exactly why). She was obsessed with cleaning, but it was probably to distract her from the abuse she suffered from her husband. She absolutely didn’t want to hear anything about vampires, but she showed up at the last minute. I liked her no-nonsense attitude.
I think I would like to meet James Harris though. He must have some interesting vampire stories to tell. Carter can go to hell though.
The genre of the book is horror. Did it succeed in making you tense or frightened? Which scene stood out most to you? Why?
I wasn’t frightened, but I did feel tense at certain parts. Every time Patricia confided in someone, I felt sure she’d be betrayed somehow. Like even Slick, the only one consistently in Patricia’s corner, betrayed her. Slick got punished for it, and that was pretty horrifying too, the complications were brutal.
The sea of rats flooding the basement, and then the bathroom. It immediately made me think of that scene in 1984, where they attach a rat cage to someone’s face as torture. So that was good use of horror. And it made me shudder.
Patricia hiding in the dusty attic, with the suitcase that held a dead body. James Harris knowing she was there.
The actual slaying of the vampire was memorable. Like the limbs moving in the separate trash bags, blood everywhere. I didn’t think James Harris would fall for all of that (I still think think he wouldn’t, but the plot does what it wants).
This is the second time we—as a book club—read a novel about another book club. Have you enjoyed that?
I love books about book clubs. I love it when a group is bound together by nothing else but a love for books. It was interesting how the book club changed throughout this book though, first the women were part of the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant book club with the controlling Marjorie Fretwell at the helm, then they started their own, small book club, all about true crime and friendship, before James Harris broke it apart and the book club wasn’t a cozy, safe space anymore. It was this big thing, where the men joined and the core group couldn’t even discuss the books they liked.
Did you find the novel predictable or did it surprise you?
Everything kind of falls apart after the suicide attempt. It did not make sense… how the story unfolded after the time-jump wasn’t something I saw coming. I already send an ask to @readerbookclub about it. I was so annoyed. Also, I could not believe James Harris fell for that seduction attempt. He told her he wouldn’t and then he did, like a second later. He was supposed to be this mastermind, but instead he got duped pretty easily. How did he survive for all those decades?
The not-so-book club love to read true crime books? Is this a genre that you enjoy? If not, did they make you curious to explore it?
I’m more into true crime documentaries, but I have read several books about famous murder cases. I love detective stories and thrillers, like the Hannibal series. I think I would like a book club like that.
It’s very rare for suburban mums to be the lead characters of a novel, especially one about vampires. What did you think of the writer mixing two very different worlds into one story?
In the book’s Author Note, he writes that he didn’t take his mom seriously. That she was a housewife in a book club, that they seemed like a bunch of lightweights to him. There is also a blurb on the cover saying:
“Hendrix has masterfully blended the disaffected housewife trope with a terrifying vampire tale, and the anxiety and tension are palpable… a cheeky, spot-on pick for bookclubs. - Booklist, starred review”
It was kind of trope-y. All the women in the book club had pretty terrible husbands, that either gaslighted them (Carter), smacked them around (Grace’s husband), or ran them into debt (Horse). Of course, everyone was pretty much broke at the end, James Harris sucked them dry in more ways than one. I thought the book would be a fun team effort, where they would hunt the vampire down together (though that scene was pretty hardcore). The true happy ending was that she divorced Carter, and the kids wanted to stay with her, despite the cheap apartment. And that Mrs Greene got her kids back, now it was safe for them to come home again. She deserved it.
