BOOK REVIEW | FICTION | HORROR
My Best Friend’s Exorcism-by Grady Hendrix — An Audiobook Review.
The horrors of high school take a macabre turn, and it’s an 80s thrill ride all the way through.
This book is my third read in Paul Combs’s “Thanks for the Nightmares” option from his Seven Summer Reading Challenges, and as a bibliophile and former bookstore owner, Paul knows his stuff. I’ve enjoyed his recommendations so much that I’ve already finished a fourth selection and may squeeze in a fifth. Still, as a break from the skin-crawling chills, my current read is the autobiography of hockey legend Brian Burke-”Burke’s Law.”
With each book review, I try my best not to give away any spoilers, but for this one, the author, Grady Hendrix, has saved me the trouble with the title. The plot revolves around a group of high school girls, a friendly foursome somewhere between Mean Girls and Heathers. Abby Rivers and Gretchen Lang are besties of the quad squad, and as the title says, one of them (Gretchen) becomes possessed by a demon.
The setting is South Carolina in 1988, and Hendrix’s chapter titles are either famous 80s Pop-Rock hits or song lyrics from the best decade in music history. I haven’t researched Hendrix, but I’m assuming he’s an ’80s survivor and does a great job of seasoning the soup with 80s pop culture references, fashion, slang, and nailing the high school vibe.
Even before the scares come, and I assure you, they do, the book is already a fun ride. The author’s blend of humor, teen life, and all through the eyes and voice of girls is impeccable. Then, he does what I love best about a good storyteller: he throws in a turn without warning, and the entire mood of the story changes. It’s like getting your butt pinched on the dancefloor; you spin around to find the culprit, but the music keeps playing, and bodies are swaying while you try to figure out what happened.
The girls are well-balanced, with each character filling the required roles. Abby Rivers is a kid from an almost middle-class family. She has smarts, good morals, and she’s loyal. Gretchen Lang became Abby’s best friend way back in grade four when she was new in town and the only girl to attend Abbey’s birthday party. Ironically, during this initial meeting, Gretchen, forced by her mother, gives Abby a bible as a gift.
The awkward exchange and subsequent discussions about embarrassing mothers and proper behaviours when invited to a party, solidifies the girl’s relationship. From that point on, Abby and Gretchen become each other’s everything.
In high school, Abby and Gretchen pair up with Glee, the always agreeable and Margaret, the babe with the mandated American teen love story dumb but hunky football player boyfriend.
The trouble begins when the foursome decides to be more brave than bright, and they experiment with LSD one evening out in the woods. Whether with faux bravado or acid-induced courage, Gretchen decides to go skinny dipping. She sprints away from her pack, shedding clothes and aiming to dive off the dock.
The other girls, still sensible, realize this is a bad idea as the tide is out and the water is shallow. They chase after Gretchen, screaming for her to stop. But Gretchen disappears off the dock and out of sight. Margaret believes Gretchen is pranking them, but Abby fears the worst, and when Gretchen fails to reappear, Abby goes on alone, searching in the darkness for her best friend.
Somewhere during the gap between Gretchen’s runaway dive and her reappearance, hours later, nude, cold and in shock, something sinister takes place, and in the days that follow, Gretchen begins to change.
Hendrix does an excellent job of staying within the confines of reality while building apprehension and dread, spinning the main character, Abby, in every emotional and mental direction possible. Loyalty and the limits of friendship are tested, but Abby refuses to abandon her best friend despite her suffering.
The deeper Gretchen falls under the control of the evil entity inside her, the more Abby realizes she is her best friend’s only hope of being saved. Even when the other girls turn their backs, Abby holds steady.
The conflicts for Abby come from all angles. Primarily, it’s her loyalty to Gretchen, and as the demon takes greater hold, it threatens to destroy Gretchen forever.
Abby endures humiliation, being cast out from the group and shunned at school by students and teachers alike. At home, Abby can’t bring herself to burden her mother with her issues, and her father is emotionally absent. There is no one to help her, no one to believe her and Abby’s world gets smaller and harder to manage.
Finally, when Abby is at her wit’s end and is on the verge of giving up on Gretchen because the cost is too high, help arrives. A young Christ crusader, Brother Christian Lemon, gives a presentation at the high school. When he sees Gretchen in the audience, he freezes — gifted with the sight of seeing evil entities; Lemon sees the demon inside young Gretchen Lang.
As the title says, there is, eventually, an exorcism, with Brother Christian Lemon leading the ritual, but things do not go as planned, and the author holds nothing back in scaring you to your bones with the many proofs that evil exists, and the devil is real.
The book is well written with a finely crafted plot, plenty of sharp turns and enough dread and scares to make your skin crawl and your spine turn to Jell-O.
To close the tale, Hendrix does something rather unusual. He takes the present accounting of the terrifying affairs and concludes the book as a memoir. The depth through to the end is surprisingly poignant and spins the entire fiction yarn into a warm, comfortable, and heavy quilt that pulls the reader back to reality.
What I enjoyed most about this book is that I felt like a teenager again — not the one living through high school hell, but the one who fell deep into the pages of young adult novels, thoroughly enjoying the pure entertainment of sinking into a good story.
I’m confident My Best Friend’s Exorcism will do the same for you.
My final rating gives this book 5 stars for pure fun and 4.5 for thrills and chills. I highly recommend scaring yourself silly and feeding your heart some good feels with this read.
I also want to highlight the narrator for this audiobook, Emily Woo Zeller who does a phenomenal job. I was solidly convinced that the narrator was a 17-year-old girl and Woo Zeller nails the supporting cast as well. Woo Zeller is the recipient of numerous audio and voice awards and I can see (or hear) why. She is brilliant reader and her voice is very pleasant to the ear.
Are you feeling charitable? If so, there is a tipping option below, or if you want to look at my Amazon wish list, click here. Please note that I am not having a mid-life crisis; the vinyl records and 80s posters on the wish list are contributions from my teenage daughter.
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