The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
Author: Grady Hendrix
Narrator: Full Cast
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Horror | Supernatural Thriller | Vampires
Publication Date: April 7, 2020
Audiobook Length: 13h 49m
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Synopsis
Patricia Campbell lives with her family in a quiet Charleston neighborhood where her days revolve around her husband, children, household responsibilities, and the book club she shares with a group of local women who have a particular fondness for true crime and thrillers.
Then James Harris moves into the neighborhood.
Charming and mysterious, James quickly becomes part of their community, but a series of increasingly disturbing events leaves Patricia suspicious of their new neighbor. When local children begin disappearing, her true-crime instincts kick in and she decides to investigate.
But what Patricia discovers suggests that the danger lurking in their seemingly peaceful neighborhood might be far worse than any serial killer she's ever read about.
My Thoughts
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires was absolutely hilarious, disturbing, chaotic, and somehow ridiculously fun at the same time.
Patricia's life is initially incredibly ordinary. Not much happens in her quiet Charleston neighborhood, and one of the few exciting parts of her routine is meeting with the other neighborhood mothers for their book club. They're united by their love of true crime and thrillers, although naturally there's also plenty of discussion about husbands, children, neighborhood happenings, and gossip. What is a book club without a little gossip?
Everything is relatively normal and boring until James Harris arrives, and suddenly things start getting increasingly weird. After several bizarre incidents, Patricia becomes suspicious of their charming new resident. And because this woman spends her free time reading about serial killers and true crime, obviously she's going to investigate.
Tbh, I would expect nothing less from a book club member.
From there, the story becomes this wonderfully chaotic mixture of rumors, paranoia, obsession, neighborhood gossip, missing children, disturbing discoveries, and eventually some very vampiric problems.
One of my favorite parts was the uncertainty surrounding Patricia's suspicions. Is something genuinely wrong? Is everyone ignoring obvious warning signs? Has Patricia consumed entirely too much true crime and created an elaborate scenario in her head? Is James a serial killer? Something worse?
WHAT IS HAPPENING?!
I also loved the contrast between the ordinary suburban setting and the increasingly horrifying things happening beneath the surface. One moment we're dealing with husbands, children, book-club meetings, and neighborhood drama, and the next we've entered firmly into what the actual hell is going on in Charleston? territory.
It was funny and absurd at times, but it could also become genuinely uncomfortable and horrifying. Somehow those different tones worked together incredibly well for me rather than fighting against each other.
Audiobook Thoughts
Despite being almost fourteen hours long, this audiobook completely had me. The full cast narration brought so much personality to Patricia and the other characters, and the performance made the increasingly chaotic situation incredibly entertaining to listen to.
I barely moved from my seat.
Food break? Fine.
Bathroom break? Apparently necessary.
Anything else? Absolutely not. Patricia has a vampire problem and I NEED ANSWERS!!!
The length never really bothered me because I was far too invested in finding out what was actually happening.
Final Thoughts
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires gave me suburban drama, true-crime-obsessed book-club ladies, gossip, paranoia, missing children, horror, vampires and an increasingly unhinged investigation.
It was funny, creepy, absurd, uncomfortable and genuinely horrifying in places, and somehow all of those things worked together perfectly for me.
I freaking loved it.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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