{"id":87299,"date":"2016-05-17T17:12:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T16:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=87299"},"modified":"2016-05-17T17:12:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T16:12:05","slug":"my-best-friends-exorcism-by-grady-hendrix-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/my-best-friends-exorcism-by-grady-hendrix-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"My Best Friend&#8217;s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix book review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The high school movies of the 1980s get a Satanic twist in Grady Hendrix\u2019s excellent follow-up to\u00a0<strong><em>Horrorst\u00f6r<\/em><\/strong>, in which a pair of teenage friends get torn apart when the Prince of Darkness comes between them.<\/p>\n<p>Our heroine is Abby Rivers, a smart, hard-working girl who keeps her grades up to stay in the prestigious, wealthy academy where the upper crust of Charleston, South Carolina\u00a0send their perfect children. Gretchen Lang has been Abby\u2019s best friend since her 10<sup>th<\/sup> birthday party, but after trying\u00a0acid leads to Gretchen spending the night lost in the woods, Abby starts to worry.<\/p>\n<p>Gretchen\u2019s acting strangely, kind of dangerous even, and it seems to be other people who are paying the price. Is Abby\u2019s best friend simply moving into the next phase of her adolescence, or is there some darker force at work?<\/p>\n<p>Hendrix has a tremendous amount of fun with his 1988 setting, channelling the spirits of teen movies past (there&#8217;s a lot of <strong><em>Heathers<\/em><\/strong>) and adding a strong dose of Chuck Palahniuk-style horror. It\u2019s not just about the music references and style choices (although both are crucial), it\u2019s about the terror of Satanic cults, the obsession with diet fads, the possibility of a touring Christian bodybuilding troupe, and the terrible finality of having your bedroom phone removed.<\/p>\n<p>He makes sure that we\u2019re fully invested in Gretchen and Abby\u2019s friendship, with all its\u00a0touching details, minor spats and total mutual dependence, before he introduces the classic possession tropes of suicidal\u00a0animals, terrified\u00a0messages from beyond and endless vomiting.<\/p>\n<p>That endless vomiting is just the beginning of the body horror shocks, and readers should be alerted to the fact that there are some truly impressive\/absolutely revolting gross-out moments to go along with the genuine chills and dark humour.<\/p>\n<p>At the book\u2019s heart, however, is an incredibly powerful friendship that Hendrix understands is absolutely essential. We never question how far Abby is willing to go for Gretchen because we understand that giving up isn\u2019t an option. <strong><em>My Best Friend&#8217;s Exorcism<\/em><\/strong> is sharp, scary, gripping, funny and gross, but it\u2019s also surprisingly sweet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High school horror gets a Satanic twist in My Best Friend&#8217;s Exorcism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":87300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1624,8],"tags":[2247,5126,5125],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/9781594748622.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}