This is a whole different ball of wax. I don’t know what to compare it to, but I’ll tell you what it has: This book had me at the description of it being a cross between Fried Green Tomatoes, Steel Magnolias and Dracula! What’s not to love about that? fernandan on Reading The Wheel of Time: Taim Tells Lies and Rand Shares His Plan in Winter’s Heart (Part 3) 4 hours ago

The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Hendrix, Grady. Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. Quirk Books, 2020. Kindle. JadePhoenix13 on Reading The Wheel of Time: Taim Tells Lies and Rand Shares His Plan in Winter’s Heart (Part 3) 3 hours ago I get that Hendrix was trying to show off the Steel Magnolia thing that everyone loves. And yes, there are most definitely those women out there. When a man moves in next door, she is intrigued but her interest is soon turned to mistrust, and she soon discovers that he is not as he seems. After a gruesome and sinister discovery, she knows what he is, but will anyone believe her? Does she suffer from an overactive imagination? Is her choice in books affecting her judgement? (I know the answer to that must be NO, otherwise I am in a whole lot of trouble myself!) Is she mentally ill? Or is she right? I truly deeply madly in love with this book! More than five gazillion stars! Somebody has to stop my fingers adding entire books of the author to my nearly collapsing Mount TBR! But I cannot stop with only one book. Can I?I was so thrown by the way the plot went too. I never knew what was going to happen next and I was LIVING ,for that. And maybe it's because I can identify with Mrs. Greene a lot easier than I can with Patricia and her friends, but I just didn't see why she kept saying that Patricia failed her. Because of course someone like Patricia would fail her. Patricia was weak as hell. All of those women were.

I started this book expecting it to be a light read and found myself drawn into a Southern Gothic tale that spent as much time on the horror of familial relationships as it did on the horror of a predator feasting on a vulnerable community. The novel begins with an omniscient narrator who tells us that the story begins with the bloody childbirth of five little girls who grow up to be housewives in the wealthy Old Village of South Carolina. Their story, the narrator says, will also end in blood. This book has a fun mix of satire, humor, and horror. Patricia Campbell and her friends have a classics book club but it’s stuffy and few enjoy it. When a friend gives Patricia a copy of a true crime book, a new club of ‘murderinos’ is formed who read only true crime (if you’re a fan, you will have lots of books to add to the tbr). The Author Resource Round Table on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_folder/116489?group_id=26989 Stepford Suburbia: The entire neighborhood is one of these, full of smiles on the outside and spousal abuse behind closed doors.

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I know I shouldn't judge a book by its title, but The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires got me real good. It sounds like a fun, lighthearted take on slaying vampires, mixed in with some Southern hospitality and book club joviality. And it started out that way. But then it went somewhere else altogether. Why can’t these women like being housewives and also be badasses who stand up to their misogynistic husbands, challenge local racism, and promote and encourage other women to step outside traditional gender roles if they so choose?? I don’t even need all of them to do it, just one would have been nice. Instead, when a lot of these ladies actually do something, it felt disingenuous and unbelievable because their characters are so content to be complacent. This book is not easy, entertaining reading! It is so smart, gruesome, wild, bloody blended with dark humor, sarcasm, criticizing of the role of wives and structures of marriage. But I may tell you this is epic and darkly heart wrenching women friendship book. Their bonding reminded me of Thelma and Louise’s last scene and filled my eyes in tears! Feel free to invite some friends to join our Round Table community!http://www.goodreads.com/group/invite_members/26989-goodreads-authors-readers

I want to add something to this review. Animals and people alike come to harm in this story because it's a vampire story. But I love a very touching scene in this book and for all my griping about gruesome, this book has the sweetest treatment of an old dog. It's very special and it meant a lot to me and that treatment has made me a big fan of this author. The dynamics amongst the ladies in the Book Club gave me life! I adored their friendships, Southern charm and humor, as well as the early-90s setting. Five regular Southern housewives (at least that’s what their moron husbands think about them!) start a book club to read true crime stories and discuss them! (See! There is nothing ordinary about them. They know their dark sides and they also know how to retrain it!) Patricia Campbell is an ex-nurse who is now married to a doctor, who is never home and when he is, he ignores and stifles her. Her two kids are ungrateful complainers. She is mostly lonely and bored. Yep, she's living the dream!

The title - misleading. The book is about one vampire and the Southern Book Club doesn't band together to fight him until 85% of the book is finished. it's not a witty book about southern women fighting vampires at all. It's the early-1990s and in their conservative neighborhood, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, it sounds better to say their Club is a Bible Study. So, that's exactly what they say. Because vampires are the original serial killers, stripped of everything that makes us human-they have no friends, no family, no roots, no children. All they have is hunger. They eat and eat but they’re never full. With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed by all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom. Lastly, there are glaring stereotypes in this story. Cultural overtones of the South with racially separated communities. Sexist households where the husband is the breadwinner and the wife is subservient. When a handsome stranger moves to town, Patricia is intrigued and oddly enough, he seems interested in joining the conversation.