Literally my Mom vs Dracula
4 stars
Content warning The plot and some TW for the scares.
Soooo I read most of Grady Hendrix's book in 7 days. This was the one that started it. I really liked the idea, of a bunch of WASPs going head to head with a vampire. It seemed it cute, and I already liked one of Grady's previous works, Horrorstor.
And this book over delivered on all of my expectations! I liked the main character, Patricia, a housewife who was a nurse in a previous life and her struggles to keep the house clean, get the kids to school, make dinner, and try have a social life in the 90s in Charleston, same place as one of Grady's other works "My Best Friend's Exorcism." She and her other white, christian, middle-class gal pals start a book club centering around true crime.
I myself am not a not a true crime person, but the way it pays off when shenanigans begin to occur, it is brilliant. Additionally I am not christian, middle-class 'gal' but I could not help by sympathize with Patricia as she deals with her old-age and mental health ridden mother in law, who is absolutely confident she knows Patrica's new mysterious and (very sexy) neighbor...
Obviously this is not a flawless horror story. Some of the topics - racism, classism, mental health and so on are not handled well. The mother in law's personal nurse Mrs Green falls well into the "black mysticism" cliche and while it's "fitting" that Patrica and her pals don't think much of the black population the two pronged attack feels bad, man. Especially since a lot of it is already pretty scary!
If you hate bugs, good luck with the attic scene. Listen I'm not squeamish but that was pushing it. There's also the scary way that the vampire takes the blood from his victims and what he does it one of Patricia's friends... There's some real atmosphere. (And dang the way the cover image ties in with the story.)
A solid horror read! I'll probably read it again.
