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pasta_sauce 's review for:
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
by Grady Hendrix
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was giving white savior and it gave me the ick.
Edited because I thought about it and dislike the book more and more. Possibly a hot take but(spoilers ahead):
The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires.
TLDR: racist undertones, violence against only women, children, and colored folks, and the only character with any depth being a singular vampire who gets pervvy with kids.
The women in that book are one dimensional with hints of a second dimension at best. Also, out of like six ladies in the book club, they all landed basic husbands with similar personalities? All of them telling their wives what to do, blocking them going to the police, when they couldn’t stop the book club they forced themselves into it and changed the reading, and multiple of the husbands possibly cheated on their wives.
Speaking of the men: If a character is a white man, then they’re safe. No harm will come to them. It was gross.
Danger only happened to the black, women, and children characters. But, let’s take a moment to discuss the black characters. Largely non-speaking rolls, sometimes not given a name, and besides a character (Mrs.green), they were described closer to being thugs. I understand describing racism in a book and even having racist incidents happening - but it was portrayed in a way that struck me as problematic. Overall, the book was giving me white savior vibes. Even the white dead MIL came back from the dead as a ghost to ‘save the children’.
A mild pet peeve of mine was the mention of vampires in the title, but there’s really only one. You could argue that Slick turned into a vampire after getting vampire aids, but the condition seemed to kill her rather than her BECOMING a vampire.
Now, onto the vampire - he was spooky and old af, I get that. He was an interesting character, probably the most interesting character in the story. However, it’s depicted multiple times of him actively getting blood from children (trigger warning)
Which he gets the blood by not sucking on their neck or arm or whatever, but by being between their thighs. Like ewwwww. hated it.
Edited because I thought about it and dislike the book more and more. Possibly a hot take but(spoilers ahead):
The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires.
TLDR: racist undertones, violence against only women, children, and colored folks, and the only character with any depth being a singular vampire who gets pervvy with kids.
The women in that book are one dimensional with hints of a second dimension at best. Also, out of like six ladies in the book club, they all landed basic husbands with similar personalities? All of them telling their wives what to do, blocking them going to the police, when they couldn’t stop the book club they forced themselves into it and changed the reading, and multiple of the husbands possibly cheated on their wives.
Speaking of the men: If a character is a white man, then they’re safe. No harm will come to them. It was gross.
Danger only happened to the black, women, and children characters. But, let’s take a moment to discuss the black characters. Largely non-speaking rolls, sometimes not given a name, and besides a character (Mrs.green), they were described closer to being thugs. I understand describing racism in a book and even having racist incidents happening - but it was portrayed in a way that struck me as problematic. Overall, the book was giving me white savior vibes. Even the white dead MIL came back from the dead as a ghost to ‘save the children’.
A mild pet peeve of mine was the mention of vampires in the title, but there’s really only one. You could argue that Slick turned into a vampire after getting vampire aids, but the condition seemed to kill her rather than her BECOMING a vampire.
Now, onto the vampire - he was spooky and old af, I get that. He was an interesting character, probably the most interesting character in the story. However, it’s depicted multiple times of him actively getting blood from children (trigger warning)
Which he gets the blood by not sucking on their neck or arm or whatever, but by being between their thighs. Like ewwwww. hated it.