Book Review: “My Best Friend’s Exorcism” by Grady Hendrix

Feb 18

Håfa adai! Welcome to my review of My Best Friend’s Exorcism, by Grady Hendrix.

This book review consists of two parts: a spoiler-free plot summary and my thoughts on the story. In the second part, I give my personal rating and break down the setting and worldbuilding, storytelling, cast of characters, and themes. There may be some lightweight spoilers—such as how characters interact with each other and the world around them—but I will not give away any major plot twists or endings. I want to share my opinions of the book and maybe encourage you to purchase a copy of your own.

Click on the tags at the bottom of this post to see all reviews with the same tags in the Horror bookshelf.

Spoiler-Free Plot Summary

Abby Rivers and Gretchen Lang’s friendship had a start that many would define as a “core memory”, with Gretchen being the only classmate to show up to Abby’s E.T.-themed roller rink birthday party in 1982. Six years later—after sleepovers, and a trip to Jamaica—the girls are as close as sisters as they enter their sophomore year at Aberdale Academy, a strict and prestigious Catholic high school. Despite the rigid structure of their school environment—or perhaps directly because of it—the girls cannot resist the call of rebellion. When the opportunity arises for an adult-free weekend at a cabin, so does the possibly of dabbling with mind-altering substances. But things do not go as planned, and Gretchen is the one to pay the price. Now, Abby must confront an unknown predatory or supernatural entity to save her best friend.

Important Trigger Warning for My Best Friend’s Exorcism

My Best Friend’s Exorcism depicts homophobia, racism, eating disorders, self-harm, attempted suicide, mentions of child abuse, and heavily suggests a violent sexual assault. These themes are presented as essential to the plot. If these would cause you distress or discomfort in any way, then please make sure to take necessary steps to prepare and protect yourself before and after reading this book.

What was the Satanic Panic?

In 1980, psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient Michelle Smith published a book titled Michelle Remembers, in which they claim that Pazder guided Smith to recover repressed childhood memories of horrific abuse at the hands of a Satanic cult. What soon spread throughout the United States was a phenomenon known as the Satanic Panic, a moral panic that daycare centers were subjecting children to Satanic ritual abuse (SRA). The Satanic Panic would soon be amplified—and even legitimized from the perspective of many Americans—by allegations of sexual abuse and possible SRA committed by the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, in 1983; along with many other similar alleged cases throughout the country. Many throughout the United States feared that daycare-age children were not the only ones vulnerable to possible SRA, but that “latchkey kids” (children who returned home from school before their parents returned from work) would also by lured into performing Satanic rituals by playing tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, listening to rock music, and watching popular horror films like The Exorcist and The Omen. Pazder and Smith’s book would later be discredited, but by that point, the damage had long been done. The Satanic Panic would carry on until the mid-1990s, but many believe that it continues on to this day.

My Thoughts on My Best Friend’s Exorcism: 3 stars

The main timeline of My Best Friend’s Exorcism takes place in 1988 South Carolina, at the height of the Satanic Panic gripping the United States, in the same story universe as Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I watched the 2022 film adaptation of this story before writing this review, but I will not compare the two here. But I will admit that I was hesitant to read this book. I had posted a review of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires in October 2024, and I had several big issues with that story. With that in mind, I did my best to go through this book and judge it on its own.

The titular best friends in this story are Abby Rivers and Gretchen Lang. Abby is an only-child from a lower middle-class family, attending Aberdale Academy on a scholarship. Gretchen is an only-child from an upper middle-class family, whose ultra-religious conservative parents believe that Gretchen would be a good influence on Abby. So, when Mr. and Mrs. Lang eventually learn about how things went horribly wrong the night at the cabin, it is Abby they blame, focusing solely on the revelation that their daughter experimented with illegal drugs and completely disregarding the terrifying allegation that was presented to them.

Gretchen’s retelling of what occurred when she vanished on the night they took LSD sounds like a violent sexual assault. What she goes through every night after and her bizarre actions that follow strongly resemble that of someone traumatized by such an attack. I have mixed feelings about this. I am not sure if Grady Hendrix is intentionally using demonic possession as a metaphor for rape—much like how the barbed tales of the Xenomorph in Alien is a metaphor for rape—or if he is simply following long-held tropes within the horror genre as a whole. But I understand that this hesitation on my part is due to my negative feelings towards The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires.

Christian Lemon is the youngest of three brothers in an evangelizer public speaking group fashioned after the wrestling craze of the 1980s. Christian claims to have the gift of discernment and is the one to “diagnose” Gretchen with demonic possession. His character made me laugh! He comes across like a charismatic travelling salesman who bites off so much more than he can chew and reacts in a hilariously predictable manner the moment he makes that realization.

Margaret and Glee being the second half of Abby and Gretchen’s high school friend group is perplexing to me. Abby and Margaret were effectively elementary school enemies for reasons I will not spoil. Yet, after the time jump from 1982 to 1988, they are close enough to be in the same friend group (with Glee joining as Margaret’s best friend), spend a weekend together at a remote cabin, and experiment with hard drugs together? Since there was seemingly no event in between that allowed them to lower their guards and become friends, their dynamic after the time jump makes no sense to me.

Another aspect of My Best Friend’s Exorcism that makes no sense to me is a running joke between Abby and Gretchen stemming from their experience of finding hidden pornographic material in the bedroom closet of one of their parents. This setup has no real payoff, does not contribute to the plot, and is really not that funny to me. The butt of the so called “joke” is that the adult performer is Black. Are the girls so freaked out by finding porn in their parent’s closet that, in their naive youthful confusion, shift that discomfort from the content of the adult material to the race of the adult performer? I can see how two children realizing that their parents are human beings with sexual needs and desires can be framed as funny. But the joke is repeated in such a way that calls negative attention to consuming porn featuring a Black performer, as opposed to the valid disgust a teen would feel after learning that their parents consume pornographic material at all.

My overall rating for Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism is 3 out of 5 stars. My Best Friend’s Exorcism has similar issues to The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires! But it is marketed as being a satirical teenage twist on stories like William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. So, it is entirely possible that the issues I took with the story are meant to be part of the joke. But there were still things I liked about this story. Grady Hendrix’s writing is vividly detailed, painting a clear picture of events, building suspense in a believable way, and fostering sympathy for Abby and Gretchen’s friendship throughout the main timeline and in the years that follow. I do not believe that I will revisit this story in the future, but there are many other readers who would appreciate this book!

Dångkulo' na' saina ma'åse'! Thank you so much for reading my review of My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix.

Rating Cheat Sheet

4.75 - 5.00 stars: As many people as possible should read this book!
4.00 - 4.50 stars: I appreciated many aspects of this book. I recommend it!
3.00 - 3.75 stars: I liked some aspects of this book. I will not revisit it, but someone else might really like it.
2.00 - 2.75 stars: There were some things I appreciated about this book, but I do not recommend it.
0.25 - 1.75 stars: I do not recommend this book! I did not enjoy or appreciate the experience of it!