Book Review: My Best Friend's Exorcism, by Grady Hendrix
The 80s were dark times... AIDS, shoulder pads, A-ha, and demonic possession.
Quirk Books, Inc., 2016, 330 pages
A heartwarming story of friendship and demonic possession.
The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since the fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act...different. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby.
Abby's investigation leads her to some startling discoveries - and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?
Like an unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist, My Best Friend's Exorcism blends teen angst, adolescent drama, unspeakable horrors, and a mix of '80s pop songs into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller.
Your best friend since 4th grade is suddenly acting weird. She's mean. Moody. Withdrawn one day, bubbly the next. Her personality is changing. She won't hang out with you anymore.
Is she:
(a) On drugs
(b) Going crazy
(c) Just moving on with her life and you're not part of it anymore
(d) Possessed by a demon
You can be forgiven if (d) seems the least likely, despite being the explanation seized upon by Gretchen's best friend Abby. But My Best Friend's Exorcism plays with the reader a little, as the first part of the book puts supernatural possession on the table but leaves it there, forcing us to wonder if maybe Abby is just losing her marbles, or not willing to accept that she's being dumped by her bff. Even as things get darker and darker, Hendrix manages to put the same doubt and tension in the reader that Abby feels. When your best friend is tied to a bed and a crazy Jesus freak weightlifter/exorcist is about to pour boiling water down her throat, are you sure - like, really, really sure - about this? Abby isn't, even after she's seen enough that she should be.
My Best Friend's Exorcism is so very, very 80s it practically wears legwarmers. Every chapter title is a line from an 80s song, and albums and brand names are dropped constantly. It's also typical of Grady Hendrix's books, showing stark class divisions and the trials of being a poor kid with parents who are doing their best but that isn't great. "Rape culture" before that was a thing, Reagan-era drug hysteria, AIDS as the gay disease you can get from public toilets, and even Dungeons & Dragons (from the era when only unfuckable nerds played it) all mix into the backdrop of a deeply social novel masquerading as a supernatural thriller.
Much of Abby's trouble stems from being from a slightly disreputable working class family. She's been admitted on a scholarship to the same private school as her best friend Gretchen, whose wealthy uptight parents immediately blame Abby for everything as soon as Gretchen starts getting in trouble. Soon Abby is the goat at school, even as she can see Gretchen destroying lives all around her. This is one of those books in which adults are useless if not malign, and poor Abby, who is, after all, only 16 and was never the sharpest or most survival-minded kid, is in way over her head when she realizes Gretchen is not just having a really bad period.
(I did find myself wondering, after the Big Bad's name in all its infernal glory is revealed, why a demon lord who commands 30 legions in hell and is the living embodiment of Armageddon is wielding his power by.... possessing a teenager and starting drama at a suburban high school. But such were horror films in the 80s as well.)
The climactic exorcism scene, as I said, is actually pretty intense, without losing the darkly humorous edge of Hendrix's writing. Abby and the preacher man try all the usual Christian stuff to banish the demon, and then when Abby is on her own, she continues to try following the Jesus script, despite not being particularly religious. This is obviously doomed to failure, so what can she do? Invoke the power of Phil Collins!
The book ends with a heartfelt epilogue that is a paean to friendship and survival, family trouble and 80s bands.
Also by Grady Hendrix: My reviews of Paperbacks from Hell, We Sold Our Souls, and Horrorstör.
My complete list of book reviews.
Quirk Books, Inc., 2016, 330 pages
A heartwarming story of friendship and demonic possession.
The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since the fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act...different. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby.
Abby's investigation leads her to some startling discoveries - and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?
Like an unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist, My Best Friend's Exorcism blends teen angst, adolescent drama, unspeakable horrors, and a mix of '80s pop songs into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller.
Your best friend since 4th grade is suddenly acting weird. She's mean. Moody. Withdrawn one day, bubbly the next. Her personality is changing. She won't hang out with you anymore.
Is she:
(a) On drugs
(b) Going crazy
(c) Just moving on with her life and you're not part of it anymore
(d) Possessed by a demon
You can be forgiven if (d) seems the least likely, despite being the explanation seized upon by Gretchen's best friend Abby. But My Best Friend's Exorcism plays with the reader a little, as the first part of the book puts supernatural possession on the table but leaves it there, forcing us to wonder if maybe Abby is just losing her marbles, or not willing to accept that she's being dumped by her bff. Even as things get darker and darker, Hendrix manages to put the same doubt and tension in the reader that Abby feels. When your best friend is tied to a bed and a crazy Jesus freak weightlifter/exorcist is about to pour boiling water down her throat, are you sure - like, really, really sure - about this? Abby isn't, even after she's seen enough that she should be.
My Best Friend's Exorcism is so very, very 80s it practically wears legwarmers. Every chapter title is a line from an 80s song, and albums and brand names are dropped constantly. It's also typical of Grady Hendrix's books, showing stark class divisions and the trials of being a poor kid with parents who are doing their best but that isn't great. "Rape culture" before that was a thing, Reagan-era drug hysteria, AIDS as the gay disease you can get from public toilets, and even Dungeons & Dragons (from the era when only unfuckable nerds played it) all mix into the backdrop of a deeply social novel masquerading as a supernatural thriller.
Much of Abby's trouble stems from being from a slightly disreputable working class family. She's been admitted on a scholarship to the same private school as her best friend Gretchen, whose wealthy uptight parents immediately blame Abby for everything as soon as Gretchen starts getting in trouble. Soon Abby is the goat at school, even as she can see Gretchen destroying lives all around her. This is one of those books in which adults are useless if not malign, and poor Abby, who is, after all, only 16 and was never the sharpest or most survival-minded kid, is in way over her head when she realizes Gretchen is not just having a really bad period.
(I did find myself wondering, after the Big Bad's name in all its infernal glory is revealed, why a demon lord who commands 30 legions in hell and is the living embodiment of Armageddon is wielding his power by.... possessing a teenager and starting drama at a suburban high school. But such were horror films in the 80s as well.)
The climactic exorcism scene, as I said, is actually pretty intense, without losing the darkly humorous edge of Hendrix's writing. Abby and the preacher man try all the usual Christian stuff to banish the demon, and then when Abby is on her own, she continues to try following the Jesus script, despite not being particularly religious. This is obviously doomed to failure, so what can she do? Invoke the power of Phil Collins!
The book ends with a heartfelt epilogue that is a paean to friendship and survival, family trouble and 80s bands.
Also by Grady Hendrix: My reviews of Paperbacks from Hell, We Sold Our Souls, and Horrorstör.
My complete list of book reviews.