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

This review is going to be one crafted from a very unpopular opinion: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires held my attention from beginning to end, but I was still disappointed.

What’s it about? Southern housewives start a book club to bring a little joy and excitement into their dull everyday lives. When a handsome, suspicious stranger by the name of James Harris moves into the neighborhood, disrupting their privileged, suburban way of life, the women start to suspect a monster has arrived to their quiet town.

“In every book we read, no one ever thought anything bad was happening until it was too late. This is where we live, it’s where our children live, it’s our home. Don’t you want to do absolutely everything you can to keep it safe?”

Let me start off by saying I didn’t hate this book. There were a lot of things I enjoyed. It’s *not* satire (I didn’t find it funny), but the writing was still gripping and graphic which is what I love to read in my horror novels. I loved how these “polite” southern housewives chose true crime as the main genre for their book club and used the circumstances in those books to guide them through terrifying decisions. Hell, this book made me wish I could start a book club of my own! The book also engages some heavy themes like motherhood, misogyny, racism, and socio-economic inequality.

HOWEVER, while the book engages these themes, it failed to REALLY address them. One thing in particular just didn’t sit well with me. The stereotypical ways Black people are portrayed in this book are harmful. In the book, Black people are house cleaners, caregivers, frightening teenagers, victims to be pitied, the nameless help in the background, (yes, the plot takes place in the South during the late 80’s/ early 90’s, but that’s not a good enough excuse for Hendrix's uncritical use of harmful Black tropes). There’s just not enough genuine perspective from the Black characters in this book. They end up in the background, and let’s be brutally honest: In order for any of these housewife heroines to have cared at all about what was happening to Black people in this book, the threat had to eventually loom over their own neighborhood (and yes I do think the vampire is a metaphor for threats of any kind). Even if all of this was intended to be critique, I wish it had been handled with a little more care.

I’m curious to know what other BIPOC thought about this book and it might be best for people to read not just the glowing positive reviews, but also a few negative reviews from perspectives that see this book in a different light. I really wanted The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires to be my new Hendrix favorite. Unfortunately it’s not. However, I still love his other books and truly like his writing...so, I’ll hold my breath for the next book.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: sexual assault, racial violence, child death

(3/5⭐)

                                                                         xo Nina