Review: My Best Friend's Exorcism

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seeing the paperback of this book on the shelves at the Stanford bookstore - a lovely design meant to evoke 80s VHS tapes - I had no choice but to order this one ASAP. It being virtually unavailable at any Bay Area library, I had to order it special from Sacramento instead. Now that I've read the whole thing - mostly during my break times at work, one of those accompanied with a Dark Mocha Frappuccino - I've found My Best Friend's Exorcism a peculiar first taste of Grady Hendrix's style and talent. Of course, now I have to read his first book, and any and all others, based on what I saw in this one. It was a little slow-moving at times, though it was easy to savor the immersion in 80s culture - not only the music and movies, but also the politics and Moral Majority nightmare-fueling that, let's face it, explains why this decade saw such a resurgence in horror movies. And then comes the actual horror show that Abby and Gretchen have to deal with, a real slow burn of terror and psychological damage that you really think could be simply real-world devils, not the supernatural kind, for the longest time.

But of course this ain't that kind of book. This book boasts a damn good soundtrack in all the chapter titles - even a lot of my personal faves like "Tonight She Comes" that nobody seems to know about. This book boasts a truckload of supporting characters with all sorts of issues to deal with, and it's hard not to sympathize with most of them to some level - though none anywhere near as much as Abby or Gretchen. This book even boasts a most unconventional exorcist, one who actually winds up being one of the story's flaws because he's simply not included enough until near the end of the book.

My Best Friend's Exorcism ain't perfect, but it delivers on the scare front, and I'm gonna keep on attempting to hand-sell this one as long as there are copies left at the store - and as long as the Halloween season is upon us.

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