My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

 I didn't plan it on purpose, but somehow I accidentally stumbled into reading one Grady Hendrix book a year for the last three years. 

My Best Friend's Exorcism was a solid read. Hendrix spent a lot longer setting up the friendship between the two main characters, Abbie and Gretchen, before the spooky stuff started. Later, as a potential possession escalated tensions and strained the bonds of friendship between the two, the time we spent really getting to see the girls grow up and grow together did pay off nicely and make the pain Abbie went through feel real. Although, as a father myself, every time Abbie's Mom gave her advice I found myself nodding along and telling Abbie to listen to her mother. 

But, that's a big part of the book. This is about two teenage girls trying to make it through life and figure things out for themselves in a time of social change. The 80s saw a dramatic change and fight back and forth in American culture with the pendulum swings from Madonna to Ronald Reagan and back creating a real challenge to understand where and how you are supposed to fit in. 

The horror elements start slowly, but build steadily and then rapidly as the story unfurls like claws ripping their way out from a young girl's mouth.....which may or may not be a spoiler ;) And like any good horror novel or film, there are points of exasperation where you want to reach into the book and shake the protagonist into realizing their in a horror novel and stop acting dumb...but that's part of the fun too isn't it? 

My only main complaint with the...actually I have two. Both are spoilers, so you've been warned. First, Gretchen while possessed kills her pet dog. I personally hate books or movies with violence against animals ever since I was half-traumatized watching Black Beauty as a small child. To this day I will never watch any "Horse" movies at all. Thankfully, the actual killing is off-camera, but before certainly isn't and it was very hard for me to not tap out right there when it became clear that there would be no 12th hour proverbial phone call from the Governor. My second complaint is that we don't get to see the actual moment of possession or what exactly led up to it as it occurs between chapters and our main POV character (Abbie) wasn't present. I recognize Hendrix probably skipped that moment on purpose to add to the tension of the Is She/Isn't She Possessed dynamic that most good exorcism stories portray, but it left me feeling like a part of the puzzle had fallen off of the table and nobody ever picked it back up. At the beginning of the possession, Gretchen was telling a not-understanding Abbie that they had to find the lost body of some girl who had been sacrificed and lay her to rest before it was too late. After the demon really got a hold of her, that whole plot was written off as it being "Too late." To me, it kind of just felt like a loose end that didn't go anywhere or could've been taken further in a different story. 

All of which is to say, I definitely enjoyed this book and it is my favorite Grady Hendrix book I've read so far. I definitely won't be waiting until next year to read another one of his stories.