The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

I wish I could give the narrator 10 stars, she helped bring this well written book to life. I had thought through out the novel how perfect it was. Dare I say Grady Hendrix makes Stephen King look feeble? I would feel true concern for these southern women with their gentile ways. The characters were very well developed. I had a particular liking to Mrs. Green, what a strong and intelligent women. I am very glad I chose this novel, I have not a single problem with any part of the story or any actions of the characters. It kept me wanting to hurry toward the end to see how it all shakes out.... yet, I didn’t want it to end. That to me is a true measure of a good novel.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

My first impression of this book was that it was a retelling of ‘Salem's Lot’ with a dash of ‘The Strain’, as collected from serialized installments in ‘Southern Living’ magazine. All of which are actually given a shout-out in this book! At its core, it’s basically a condemnation of Southern upper middle class white people, the men especially. The protagonists of this book are small minded, arrogant, racist, and outrageously self-entitled. Plus viciously protective of their little suburban kingdoms, in the most selfish, passive aggressive and mean spirited ways possible. Welcome to the South! To me, the real hero of the book was Mr. “Boo Daddy” vampire, James Harris. It was somehow gratifying to watch him turn their greed and vanity back on themselves to get away with murder right in their immaculately landscaped back yards. As the book went on, I started to hope he’d clean out the lot of them. Slurp! Slurp! I’m giving the book itself two stars, it’s kind of a jumbled mess, with far too much exposition and backstory leading up the meat of the novel. Which there’s very little of! I found myself fast forwarding through big chunks of it, just to get a section with some forward progress in the narrative. For the audiobook narrator, Bahni Turpin, I give five stars. She does an excellent job, and I love it when a narrator can change the pitch and timbre of their voice to evoke each different character, which she does well.

The story lime was not the best

This book really excels at the characterization and it lovingly takes its time exploring these women and their friendships. They all have real strengths and shortcomings. The vampire is of course interesting too but more as a foil for them than anything else. I'm a big fan of horror and I was on the edge of my seat during a few chapters. I'm also a southern transplant to a big city and this book made me miss my mom. But in a good way.

Different look into vampire myth and women in the south. I liked it and characters were well developed. Not much to make males feel good about our place in the family.