My Best Friends Exorcism - Grady Hendrix

Horror

Rating: 8/10

If we are being honest, who among us hasn’t been in the vicinity of teens or pre-teens and wondered if they were possessed by demons?  Seriously, have you been to a Starbucks lately?

Two high schoolers, Abby and Gretchen, have been best friends forever.  But after an evening of skinny dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act…different. And then there is the aroma wafting after her wherever she goes.  Abby is determined to save her friend, leaving us to wonder if their friendship is powerful enough to beat the devil?

This author is remarkably inventive in his perspectives on tropes that feed the horror genre and this novel does not disappoint. Although he might be building a tale that is out of the realm of actual possibility, he hits on the very real challenges and humiliations of being an adolescent and having to attend an institution of higher learning.  Which might in fact be the real horror of this story!

It also must be stated that this is a love letter to friendship, from start to finish.

Footnote: I love a book that offers a little touch of some kind that sets it apart.  This one offers heaps of 80’s pop culture and each chapter is a song title that pulls the reader right back to those moments.  A playlist might be in order…