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The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

 "Patricia looked out the window and felt everything falling apart."

Patricia Campbell lived a peaceful, normal life.  She cared for her family an her household and she found joy in her true crime loving book club.  Things in Patricia's world were good.  Calm.  Boring even.  And then James Harris moved in.

I could not put this book down.  At first it made me laugh.  As someone who spent eight years as a stay at home mom while her husband worked in different states and countries I found myself identifying with Patricia.  I felt her loneliness and need for excitement.

"Carter's spoon clicked against the bottom of the bowl and he stood up, leaving his bowl on the place mat for her to clean up, not waiting to hear what she had to say.  In that moment, Patricia hated her family with a passion."

Not that I hate my family, obviously.  But I felt her frustration on a personal level.

Then the book got creepy.  Super creepy.  Keeping me up at night creepy.  And I loved it.  It's been a while since I read some decent horror and I found this to be an excellent distraction from my life.

And then the book got frustrating.  Why wasn't anyone listening to Patricia?  Why were they all so stupid?  Why is James Harris such a scumbag?  Ugh.  I enjoyed Patricia as the protagonist of this book and was angry for her.  She just wanted to solve the town's problems and put a criminal away.  It wasn't that much to ask for.  But no one wanted to listen to a silly housewife.

By the end of the book I had happy tears in my eyes, which might sound odd coming from a scary book.  I found myself caught up in the relationships between the book club women and all that they had been through.  It was an excellent book.

I read a few reviews on The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires that sound Grady Hendrix made the women seem to simple.  I'm going to go ahead and call BS.  I thought they were all well written and spot on for housewives of the early 1990s.  I feel like America, in general, has a bad taste in its mouth regarding women that chose to stay home for a living.  It's not an easy thing to do and I have a lot of thoughts on the subject, but I'll save my soapbox for another day.



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