When Chris MacNeil's daughter starts acting strangely, she does everything in her power to help her from doctors, hospitals and medication. But as things go from bad to worse, Chris finally turns to the last place she would think in her desperation - the Catholic Church in order for them to perform an exorcism on young Regan.

This....was interesting, I guess? I'm not a huge horror reader, but predictably I'm a little basic at this time of year and often I'm feeling like picking up some kind of horror/scary book to give me the spooky, Halloween feels and there's times that this book definitely does but not so much as with what is written on the page but more so the imagining of the terror and pain going on in this family and what this demon is doing to a poor little girl. That's definitely the hardest part of this book - especially when there's a point the demon uses Regan's own hands to mutilate herself in front of her mother.

I can't say I enjoyed this book either due to the subject matter, and even though I didn't find this overly violent or gross in any way (the worse/most vulgar parts in the book were really when the priests were describing some of the consecration of the church and what some people were doing to the statues, or what this kind of consecration/devil worship entailed). There is a style to this book that is impressive, and despite some of the horror, and the language and the shocking scenes, there's an intelligence behind the story and all the characters that is evident in all of the conversations from Father Karras and Father Dyer, to Detective Kinderman.

I don't think I'd necessarily recommend this book but I'm glad I've finally picked up one of the 'horror classics'.