I have been wanting to read a Grady Hendrix book for so long but I made myself wait until the spooky season so I could fully celebrate the holiday in style. It was a toss up between this book and Grady’s other novel, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires but as this book was picked for me by Eva at Eva’s Book Corner for my 2021 TBR, I decided to tick this one off my list.

The book follows best friends Abby and Gretchen who have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act differently. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behaviour start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favourite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

I thought the book had a really great set of characters who made me feel like I’d just stepped into a teenage girl friendship group and was with them watching events as they transpired. I really loved that the book was set in high school, as it allowed the main characters to seem like they were living in some sort of nightmare which all the adults didn’t believe. I think Grady excellently used the high school setting to depict the ongoing battle of good vs. evil, and I found that it gave me all the Stranger Things feels.

I also really enjoyed all the cult horror film references and how every chapter was excellently named after an iconic 80s song. Halfway through the book, I actually searched on Spotify to see if anyone had made a playlist of all the songs and I’m happy to report that there are lots to choose from!

On a deeper level, I think it was interesting that through the genre of classic horror, Grady Hendrix explored quite important topics such as class divide, scholarships, teenage relationships, rape, church and religion. He didn’t have to take that stance but I admire his bravery in using cult horror tropes to explore how hard it is to be a teenager sometimes, as well as using the typical American education system as a great tool for exploration.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and it’s short chapters, humour and classic horror elements meant that I was hooked from the start and absolutely flew through the story. I would love to see it being made into a film or series some day, and to be quite honest, I’m shocked it hasn’t already been adapted.

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