This ENHANCED DIGITAL EDITION features TONS of TOTALLY AWESOME ’80s bonus materials—including Satanic Panic educational pamphlets, a do-it-yourself exorcism cheat sheet, a Spotify playlist of awesome ’80s tunes, animated cover artwork, and much more! From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, this unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist… Vampires, this unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist blends teen angst and unspeakable horrors into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller.
The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since 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?
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HI I STAYED UP TIL 3 AM FINISHING THIS BOOK AND I’M HERE TO TALK ABOUT IT.
What’s that? A supernatural tale of friendship and horror set in the 80s? SIGN ME THE HELL UP. This book is pretty much everything I love and nothing I hate: FEMALE FRIENDSHIP. 80s music and references. Witty Heathers-esque banter. The occult. Prep school setting.
Also, this is the perfect thing to read late at night in that it’s the worst thing to read late at night? And yes, it gave me weird dreams. It’s the kind of scary that reaches into your deep-seated teenage anxieties and unspools them into chilling tableaus. I literally shook while reading the end of the book. Exorcism as a trope or genre has never really been my “thing” but I could not put this book down.
Definitely recommend if you like any of the following: Stranger Things, Twin Peaks, Mean Girls, Thoroughbreds, Jennifer’s Body, Jawbreaker.
Comic horror, 80s style. So much love for this.
Can a horror novel be fun, flippant, gross, and moving? This one can. Pick it up if you’re in the mood to laugh one minute and cringe the next.
Steeped in 80’s nostalgia, I thought this book was a blast!
It was never really scary, and I’m not sure that it was meant to be. My instincts tell me this book was written as an homage to the 80’s and the silly fun that the horror genre provided at that time. Sure, there were crazy Satanism scares, Geraldo and diet fads but there were also great music videos, Blockbuster stores and a horror book boom to beat all booms. A lot of them were just like this…about young people, influenced by culture and cliques, just trying to fit in. Carrie, Audrina, and all those kids from the covers of John Saul novels know what I’m talking about it.
If YOU know what I’m talking about and if you’re smiling at those memories as I am, then I recommend this book. It was made for you!
*I bought MY BEST FRIEND’S EXORCISM with my own hard earned money. It’s the enhanced version and it’s a lot fun, especially those flies crawling on the cover!*
I didn’t think I was a fan of horror, but I really enjoyed this book. It may have turned me. Anyone interested in YA, stories about friendship, and even a slight interest in horror will enjoy this book.
I loved the atmosphere of this book. It’s so totally 80’s, and it sets a perfect canvas for the classic story of demonic possession. While the setting seems a little silly, the book is actually kind of terrifying, with a lot of twists and turns in the storyline. That being said, the book does have some plot holes. Its never explained how Gretchen actually comes to be possessed, and the ending is strangely unsatisfying. (If any of you want to rewrite this ending and send it to me, that would be awesome.)
I read this because I was feeling too happy, too unafraid. Now I’m watching my family members closely and trying to trick them into confessing that they’re harboring demons.
I’ll get you, demon! You can’t hide from me forever!
Packed with 80’s nostalgia and a thoroughly likable lead character, Grady Hendrix’s “My Best Friend’s Exorcism” indeed centers on a pair of friends and on an exorcism. Gretchen and Abby develop a friendship in grade school at a skating party. A great deal of the beginning of the book concentrates on explaining the deepening of their attachment for one another. When the girls reach high school, they party with two other classmates and decide to “Just Say…” well, not what Mrs. Nancy Reagan would advise. Although none of the girls feel the effects of said recreational activity, Gretchen runs into the darkness of the surrounding woods to skinny dip. When she’s found, she’s muddy, bruised, and can’t remember her evening in the buff in the wilds of the Carolinas. From that evening, Gretchen’s changed.
The book has a few potential trigger warnings. There’s a lot of 80’s lingo, much of which is not acceptable to a modern audience. There are mentions of drugging and raping without real repricussions, since the party involved was from ‘a good family.’ There’s a parental trip with a teen girl to “check that her virginity is intact. (Don’t laugh. I knew a girl for whom that was a reality.) There are a lot of animals who meet their demise. (though not graphically.) And there’s of course the idea behind the book. Demonic Possession. It’s handled with an interesting slant, though.
At its heart, this book is a beautiful exploration of friendship, and for fans of big 80’s fashion and gnarly horror, this story is a heck of a lot of fun.
This book is a great read for October. It’s easy to read and action packed. I stayed up way too late reading it. I reccomend getting the print version b/c the cover is awesome. So many people asked me how old the book was b/c the cover looked like it a book straight from the 80s. I am getting Horrorstor next!
All the good and bad of the 80s, the terror of teen angst and high school, a touch of coming of age, a dash of humor, and a whole lot of horror. Grady Hendrix has stuffed this book to perfection.
This book is so damn fire. Hendrix is a master.
This was my first read of something by this author, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
In the end, I don’t think this author is for me.
In this novel we follow the life of Abby and her friend Gretchen. They grow up together with many memorable moments, but it all changes on a weekend out near some woods at their friend Margaret’s place. Something has changed in Gretchen. She’s not the girl she used to be, and Abby won’t rest until she can help her friend. Is Gretchen just outgrowing their friendship, or is there something darker at work?
So first and foremost I want to tackle something that’s been bugging me. This work has been tagged as horror a great many times, but ultimately I don’t believe this book has enough horror to really justify that classification. I would say at least 75% of this story is more of a coming-of-age tale with some spooks here and there. There just wasn’t enough focus on the horror element for me to call it a horror novel. So if you’re looking for a horror novel, I would look elsewhere. If coming-of-age stories are your thing, you’ll probably love this! Moving on.
Overall, the characters were alright. Abby is your typical teenager growing up in the 80’s. She wants to fit in and find her place in the world. Gretchen is her partner in crime and they do pretty much everything together. I liked their relationship and how it built over the beginning of the book. That being said, I felt that both of their characters could’ve had a bit more depth to them. They didn’t quite feel three-dimensional. We had a good backdrop of what happened to make them close, but it wasn’t quite enough for me.
I also feel that other characters were extremely simple and followed cliches to a tee.
The plot really drew me in (it usually does). I mean, the 80’s? A friend potentially possessed by a demon? Sign me up! Unfortunately as I’ve mentioned above, that’s not really the focus of this book in my opinion. This was more coming of age, and since the characters are in high school, that’s means oodles of high school drama. I’m not a huge fan of that, so I got pretty tired of the seemingly endless little tiffs that occurred. At a certain point it just felt whiney and annoying.
As far as the 80’s go, I love the nostalgia, but nostalgia has its limits. To be frank, there are too many 80’s references. I’m big on nostalgia, but it felt like I was beaten over the head with it with the constant references. If the author would tone it down by maybe 20-30% I think it would be fine. To me it just felt like he may be overcompensating or trying to prove how much he knows about the 80’s. That really made things drag for me since all those little details in the grand scheme of things aren’t all that important.
I almost DNF’d this book, but decided to see it through to the end because I did care enough to want to see how the story ended. Was this book a great horror novel? Not by any means, but if you like coming of age tales with plenty of drama and a couple spooks, this is definitely the book for you.
This is my second Grady Hendrix book and I liked it only *slightly* less than The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. Four stars!
Here are some things I like about his books:
1. FUN!
2. His stories are slow going to start, but when they hit maximum speed, they’re really hard to put down. (And so disgusting. True horror!)
3. He knows his decades and pop culture. Spot on with school life in the 80s and 90s, and the lives of 90s housewives. 🙂
4. This book is arranged by chapter which are linked to 80s music hits. I’ve never been interested in chapter lists, but this one was really fun. Make sure you read it and take note of each chapter title as you’re going through this book. I also love how he integrated music throughout the book.
5. Mr. Hendrix knows FRIENDSHIP and he writes about it really well. This is the second time I’ve closed a book and thought, “Damn, it’s good to have good friends.”
More on this book later, but if you like the 80s and books about Satanic possession and exorcisms with witty splashes of humor throughout the whole book, you’re likely going to like My Best Friend’s Exorcism.
Great writing. I love the snark, humor, and clear connections between characters.
I guess let’s get this out of the way: yes, a dog dies. I would mark that as a spoiler, but I have never met someone who wasn’t happy to know that up front.
With that out of the way, this is the second book I’ve read by Hendrix, and once again he did not disappoint. I have yet to find an author so adept at brutalizing his characters and slamming them, face first, into rock bottom, yet Hendrix still manages to find a way to pull them back out again a little worse for wear but stronger than before.
Our heroine, Abby, is a teenage girl, poor and insecure, whose only source of strength is in her friends. When her best friend is possessed by a demon and begins ripping that support system apart, she’s forced to find strength within herself in order to find a way to save her. This story is unnerving and stressful where characters frequently make mistakes, and you never quite feel like they have any control over what is happening to them. Overall, I think Hendrix has a great handle on this genre and knows how to exploit his characters and their naïveté so they are always in the most vulnerable positions possible. Nothing ever goes right for Abby. In fact, the amount of bad stuff that happens to her is just relentless and makes for great horror.
This book is about the struggle between good and evil, teenage adolescence, the agency of women, religion, and everything that can go wrong in a young girl’s life. I loved it! Four stars because it still does not compare to The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires which is my favorite of Hendrix’s so far.
Abby and Gretchen have been best friends ever since Gretchen was the only kid in their class who showed up to Abby’s birthday party in fifth grade. They’ve been through a lot of normal teen drama together. But now in their sophomore year of high school in the ‘80s, they’ll face a test of their friendship neither of them ever saw coming.
I loved the way this ended and I hate that I can’t say more about it because I definitely have things I want need to say. But no one likes spoilers, right? Just know that the celebration of real, true friendship surprised me and made me so happy. A horror novel made me happy? Why, yes, it did.
Now that that’s out of the way, I have a confession. Demons, especially those who require exorcism, scare the absolute bejeezus out of me. I can read most horror but I will have literal nightmares for weeks after reading about demons. I can’t really watch horror movies of any type so that’s a moot point. But me reading about demons = bad idea.
So why did I read this? I honestly don’t know. I read The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, also written by Grady Hendrix, earlier this year and enjoyed it. I saw this was available on my digital library last month and decided to start my Halloween horror fest early.
It was touch and go with the nightmares but I never did have any. I think the fact that the things that happened could mostly be attributed to mean girl cruelty helped. Don’t get me wrong; they made me angry but there wasn’t too much “supernatural creature seizing control of your body and making you spew green vomit while your head spins or arch backward until your spine cracks” kind of business. That’s what gets me. Mean girls? We all know them and loathe them. Nothing too supernatural there. So that kept my brain calm enough.
Speaking of mean girls… Abby attends an elite high school on a scholarship. It was definitely an issue in elementary school (see my synopsis about her tenth birthday party), but now that she’s older, she and her friends don’t really think about it–until the trouble starts. Any time there is a dispute between Abby’s word and that of another student, Abby is the one who takes the fall. The faculty can’t upset the family who funded the new football stadium, now can they? The entitlement of those kids and parents was maddening. Abby’s mom even tries to warn her to just keep her head down because the other kids are golden and she’s “just the scholarship girl” but Abby doesn’t believe her until it’s too late.
I’m just a bit younger than Abby and Gretchen, but the pop culture references were a lot of fun. I recognized all of the songs and products and remember everyone’s obsession with hairspray. (I have really curly hair so my goal has always been to fight big hair, not create it.) There were periodic news articles and advertisements included in the text about “how to make sure your teen doesn’t worship Satan/get sacrificed to Satan.” I remember the Procter & Gamble rumor from back then. There were some “DARE to say no” anti-drug ads that also added to fun ‘80s feel. I was curious if they were real ads and articles from the time.
For a pretty creep-tastic ‘80s flashback, I do recommend this book for horror fans. It has a surprisingly sweet message about friendship at the end that makes it all worthwhile.
This was my second Grady Hendrix book, and I really enjoyed it.
Possession type horror has always been the scariest to me because a lot of it is based on true accounts. Whether you believe in demonic possession or not, something happens to the “possessed” people, and all of the jerky movements they show in movies just get to me.
With that being said, this book wasn’t as scary as those movies. I was hoping for it to be much scarier, but there are still some creepy moments.
I feel like this book would be okay for non-horror lovers as well, because it isn’t too scary.
I got so angry about halfway through this book because no one was listening to Abby when she was trying to get help for Gretchen. Everyone turned it around to make her look like the “bad guy”, and I was so angry for her. She was right, in the end, so everyone should have listened to her much sooner.
The title of this book suggests that the possession/exorcism is the main theme, but it’s really the friendship between Gretchen and Abby. They are friendship goals, and if you are lucky enough to find a friend like either one of them, hold on tight.
Abby and Gretchen get forced together when they’re young, and become lifelong friends. These two don’t just stay friends through middle/high school, but for life! Hendrix does an excellent job at showing the way friendships change and evolve. Friendships have ups and downs; periods where you don’t talk for months, maybe years; arguments, marriages, babies, promotions, moves, etc. Sometimes you grow-apart for periods, then come back together. It’s life. Grace, forgiveness, understanding, are necessary for all lifelong relationships.
This book was truly touching, and a very enjoyable read.
It had some decent content, but mostly sold in common tropes. The problem was the filler. Bloated stories are a waste of time and it dragged at a snail’s pace.
This is a story about friendship, with a little possession thrown in! I didn’t expect to be moved by an exorcism story but I was. Loved how the author touched on true friendship, these girls go through so much together, and as they grow older life gets in the way. But in the end stages of life they are together again!
The ultimate story of friendship … you know, with some demon possession thrown in.
Full of eighties nostalgia and lots of humor, My Best Friend’s Exorcism did the trick. I really need to read more horror.
OMG I LOVED this book! The narrator, Emily Woo Zeller, was so awesome! She nailed it a billion times. The story is great and never dull. The characters and their relationships are realistic and believable. The horror in this book is so much more than a possession. this is the first thing I’ve read/listened to by Grady Hendrix but it sure won’t be the last.