Emma Wolff

Don't trust the title-- this is NOT one of the fun ones (see "Final Girls' Support Group" and "How To Sell A Haunted House") and it is NOT about some plucky group of Southern housewives who take care of business and learn their own value and girl power along the way. The middle 200 or so pages are just torture porn of a helpless housewife surrounded by terrible people who treat her poorly (yes, even her book club "friends.") Some people are into these kinds of stories, but I found the pacing incredibly slow (the book takes place over YEARS of time; no one "hunts" anything; there isn't any action or true character development until late in the final act). I don't mind it being a dark one, the payoff just wasn't there. I found it incredibly frustrating and wished we could just skip to the parts where things actually happened. Often, I didn't even know why Patricia valued her life or her family, as they were all so overly... Terrible! Not even just to her, but objectively (I don't want to spoil it, but her son should've been evaluated pretty early on. The kid was into some wack crap). I'm also not really into the Cinderella role Patricia plays, where every mess is always her responsibility no matter who caused it and everyone always blames her for everything. Again, this is relatable to some folks, but not me. It just stressed me out until someone finally actually did something that mattered to solve the real problem (the vampire) at hand. The other Hendrix books I mentioned previously have proactive characters, which I MUCH prefer, and much better relationships along the way, no matter their tensions and histories to overcome. They're quicker, wittier, funny, imaginative, creepy, dark at times, and ultimately triumphant. I had high hopes, but this one just didn't hit the same. He does consistently portray children as really annoying and selfish though, so at least that's consistent.