Grady Hendrix : The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
Grady Hendrix takes readers to Charleston, where a quiet suburb is about to get the most unexpected visitor:
Patricia Campbell gave up her love of nursing in order to have a family and support her husband in his career choices and now she feels like that she does not have much of a life outside of her house. This changes when she joins a book club with other mothers and wives from Charleston and they have one big obsession, true crime and mystery books. However, mystery is about to come to Patricia's house when a new neighbour moves up the street, Patricia is attacked outside her home and children begin to go missing from the poorer neighbourhood are going missing. Are all these events related or has Patricia been spending too much time reading books for her book club, one thing is for sure she did not the answer she was expecting.
This is the first book that I have read by Hendrix and I am excited to check out some of her other works as I liked this book, even though it wasn't quite what I expected. When I started seeing reviews for this book as a great horror novel I expecting it to be more horror and less details of a southern wife's life at home. So the book does start out slow as we get to know Patricia and why she is so unhappy with her life, and her striving to find a way to change that, this is actually an aspect or theme throughout the book. I really do wish there was more slaying vampires and less debating whether or not Patricia is crazy, mixed in with doing some house work and talking about husbands. There is a bit of detective work that is done by Patricia but it is disjointed throughout the book especially with the time jump.
Patricia is a house wife who tries to do it all and I hate to say it but she is portrayed as a typical house wife who is looking for a little bit of spice, adventure, mystery, something in her life. This is what leads her to the book club but also what leads her to befriend the new neighbour who moves down the street. Patricia is a strong character and a great mom who really puts everything she has to keep her house in order and protect her children, so you cannot not like her. Does she makes some not so smart choices, sure but we are all human after all (well most of us, as you never know as this book highlights). As this book is told from Patricia's point of view we only get to know the other characters, mainly those from the book club, from her point of view but they are all fairly similar.
I liked Hendrix's take on the Vampire was very traditional blood thirsty and preying on the unsuspecting and weak. I like the hussel that he takes from town to town, it was just unfortunate for him that some people live a long time too. It really is an art that he had perfected. It was interesting to also watch what ailments the Vampire has and how he gets around them, as well as his strengths, the last scenes are really horrifying (enjoyed every minute of it).
I know that Hendrix was going for a 90s feel in this book but I felt like it was set in the 50s as it seemed that all of the women were house wives and were expected to take care of their house, children and husband. None of the characters worked outside of the home, which I believe was more of what happened in 90s (even in the south) plus all the housework etc, and there is really no mention of the technology of the 90s that makes me think this is the time period its based in. Not going to say that all that house cleaning doesn't come in handy, but the book just lacked the 90s feel to it.
Although this was not quite the book I was expecting, I still enjoyed the ride that Hendrix takes the reader on. This book is well written, well thought out and the horror scenes that do occur are downright frightening. Looking forward to checking more out by Hendrix.
Enjoy!!!
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