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

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The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Review by Hannah Hobbs


What would you do to protect your children? Would you go to the same lengths to protect someone else’s children? There’s a problem in Charleston, South Carolina during the 1990’s. Children are dying. People have been attacked. There’s a mysterious stranger in town, changing family’s lives and fortunes. A middle-aged women’s book club is left to take care of the problem - before it’s too late. Patricia, wife to Carter and mom to two kids, just wants to read an interesting book for once. But after she is attacked after her book club one evening, her life quickly begins to change. As Patricia investigates, terrible secrets are revealed and it seems that there must be a monster in their small, Southern town. 


At times both full of suspense and hilarious, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires combines horror with humor and thrills with tenderness. If you enjoyed My Best Friend’s Excorcism by Grady Hendrix, or enjoy Stephen King books, find The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires at your library today! Hendrix’s latest work is a great exploration of small-town dynamics, middle-aged women, complicated family relationships, and how people relate to concepts they don’t understand. 


The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is highly entertaining and will keep you turning pages late into the night, but it also raises important questions about deeply rooted mental health, sexism, racism, and classism in small town societies. Hendrix has written an unflinchingly honest account of the world. If, like Patricia, we were to find out that these monsters really did exist - who can say what our response might be? Fortunately, we have the privilege of only reading about them. Check out The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires on Libby or in person at our ARVRLS branches today!


-Hannah


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