[Book Review] My Best Friend’s Exorcism

Abby and Gretchen; best friends forever! Well, that was the case until a bad acid trip caused the girls to get separated for a while. Since then, Gretchen’s been acting out of character. She has a serious stick up her ass and Abby doesn’t know why. It’s almost as if she’s been possessed... 

Set during the height of the satanic panic of the 1980s, My Best Friend's Exorcism is a story of friendship. What would you do to save your best friend? It gives a great outlook into the minds of teenage girls. How even the smallest thing can feel like the end of the world. It’s hard enough to deal with boys and bitchiness without adding your best friend being possessed by a demon to the list. If Tina Fey wrote The Exorcist, it would be My Best Friend’s Exorcism. 

The story follows Abby and Gretchen who have been best friends for as long as they can remember, they are practically sisters. They tell each other everything. So, you can imagine Abby’s surprise when Gretchen suddenly turns into a cold bitter mess, destroying everything and everyone in her path. 

I am a huge horror fan, having been watching horror films since I was a child, I don’t get scared easily. When I tell you, I was SCARED for my life, I really mean it. You can throw all the murderers, all the goblins, all the ghouls in the world at me and I won't flinch an inch. Demons on the other hand? Nope. I can’t and I won’t. There’s just something about them that’s so awful. They are pure evil. Call it paranoia, call it gullible, call it whatever you want but I swear to you, the more I read and the darker it got outside, I had this eerie feeling as if something was watching me. There were so many times I'd put it down to go to sleep and within minutes I'd have my light back on out of fear there was something lurking in the shadows. There was one moment in the book involving the demon and Abby coming face to face, the chill that went up my spine had me feeling like I was going to wake up dead. 

The dynamic between Abby, Gretchen, and their friends was perfectly written. It felt as if I was transported back to secondary school again. The drama, the bitching, it felt like I was really inside a teenage girl's mind. When I found out it wasn’t written by a woman but in fact a grown man, it threw me. He had written the characters and the traits of a teenage girl down to a tee including the ugliest sides of us. The book was so addictive. I couldn’t put it down. Every time I was trying to stop reading something happened that intrigued me and spurred me on to continue. I finished the book in 2 days, if it wasn’t for work it would have been one *eye rolls*. Although on the plus side, because I wouldn’t shut up about it, I did manage to infiltrate my full team into reading it! 

The transformation of Gretchen made me feel weirdly emotional. I suffer with mental illness, so I know all too well the feeling of letting yourself go. Unable to get out of bed, your bedroom turning into a depression pit of despair, showering, and brushing your teeth seeming like the hardest tasks in the world. I felt seen reading Gretchen’s downfall. Her possession felt like an analogy. 

I love how Hendrix plays on hysteria of the 80s, I don’t know why but Satanic Panic will always be funny to me. You listen to Metal? You slaughter children when the clock strikes midnight. You play Dungeons and Dragons? You’re in cahoots with Beelzebub and want to see the world crumble. Honestly the mania was over such trivial things, yet racism and homophobia were completely acceptable? Yep, that makes sense! Despite the very real problematic past of the 1980s, there’s something about the 80s in fiction that makes it the perfect setting. I wasn’t even a mere thought in the 80s, but even I experience a feeling of nostalgia when thinking about it. IT Chapter 1, The Goonies, Stranger Things, just a few examples of if you give the audience a group of young teens and the summer of 1980- something, you’ve got the perfect winning antidote. 

I found out about My Best Friend’s Exorcism through TikTok. I’m ashamed to admit this but do you know how they say, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover?’ well that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t really care for the synopsis; it was originally the cover art that got me. I was a tad critical reading the reviews because I couldn’t see how the story could work. And another possession plot? I thought it was overdone. I was wrong. My Best Friend’s Exorcism wasn’t like anything I've ever read or watched before. Yes, it was gory, it was scary too but that’s not the best part about it. At its core it’s a story about friendship. Yeah, there’s a whole lot of craziness in between, but ultimately it feels like a Lindsay Lohan 2000s teen chick flick. It’s fun, it’s cringe and it’s camp. It’s a perfect combination of horror meets comedy. Maybe it’s Hendrix himself that’s got the magic touch. The way he’s written the personality of all the characters right down to the tiniest details, his knowledge of the supernatural. If you told me that Grady Hendrix was the first choice for Regina George, I would 100% believe you. 

Hendrix had me laughing, crying, repulsed, and frightened by my own shadow. Since reading My Best Friend’s Exorcism, I have become one of his biggest fans and have read more of his books including Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, The Final Girl Support Group and We Sold Our Souls. He has a way of writing his female characters in a way not many men know how to do. His ideas are fresh, his storytelling grabs your attention straight away and he knows how to keep you hooked until the very end. 

My Best Friend’s Exorcism is without a doubt one of the best horror novels out there. It was fun. It was gory. It was cheesy. It had everything a great horror story should have. If you love camp 80s horror, then you’ll love this!

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