Book Review: My Best Friend's Exorcism

Written by Grady Hendrix, My Best Friend's Exorcism is a supernatural, horror book published in 2016. Its narrative follows central protagonist Abby Rivers who lives a pretty normal life of a teenage girl in the 1980’s South Carolina. Abby’s best friend is Gretchen Lang, a girl who she’s known nearly her entire life.  As both girls are navigating the normal complexities of Sophomore year at high school, they soon come to discover their summer is about to get a whole lot scarier. After a drunken night out on the lakefront with their girlfriends Glee and Margaret, the girls discover Gretchen disorientated and naked after getting lost out in the woods.  Despite all of the girls sobering up soon after, Abby begins to notice a lot of questionable behaviour from her best friend as the weeks progress.  As time goes by her behaviour is soon accompanied by supernatural phenomenon that leads Abby to conclude her best friend may actually be possessed by a demon.  With no one willing to see the signs as Abby does, it’s down to her alone to save her best friend before the demon can do any truly permanent damage. 

The narrative of the story is clearly out to tick a lot of your standard possession story tropes.  I think that’s where my gripes with the story stem from, as I just feel it is more interested on reflecting these common elements you’d find in an 80’s horror flick than telling a compelling story.  That’s not to say there’s nothing of genuine quality to be found on this book as when it’s not chasing the ghost of the 80’s horror flick, it does actually find time to tell a compelling story about friendship.  The relationship between Abby and Gretchen is excellently realized in the confines of the book because it recognizes the moments that define friendships and why they are so important.  I feel when the book is honing in on these kinds of elements it actually comes off as quite competent, it’s just a shame there’s so much extra baggage to this narrative. I don’t think Hendrix is a bad writer in any sense, I just feel he lacks the ability to focus the narrative properly, too much of it is unbalanced between the friendship and the supernatural stuff.

I think one area Hendrix does get the balance right though is tone.  I genuinely believe this is a story based in the 80’s with a pair of teenage girls at the core of its theme.  There’s a lot of funny dialogue imbued throughout the course of the book and it does come off as quite natural for the era it’s based in.  On the flipside of that, when the horror element comes to the forefront, it’s remarkably visualized and it contrasts quite well against the lighter elements of the book.  There’s a lot of emotions mixed up in the story and that is probably one of the major aspects I think Hendrix is able to incorporate nicely into the structure of the narrative, none of it feels too much or too little. 

My Best Friend's Exorcism isn’t a fantastic book upon reflection.  I do genuinely feel it tries too hard to be a homage to the 80’s horror flick rather than trying to tell its own story.  When it stops doing this and does focus on its own original ideas it does feel genuinely compelling, but those moments are few and far between.  It’s just too much of a bloated story to really recommend on a genuine level.  If you’re willing to work through the inconsistencies, you may find some mileage out of the story but it was sadly a forgettable read for me in the end.