What a damn pleasure of a book! My Best Friend’s Exorcism, a Novel by Grady Hendrix, is an outrageously unabashed ode to big hair, teenage angst, and some good old-fashioned demonic possession. A Punky Brewster meets Exorcist if you will. Maybe that’s not quite right. Perhaps it’s more Saved by the Bell meets Carrie?

Maybe both of those are accurate. You get the point.

Moving on.

This book is a creepy-as-hell, supernatural horror tale, yet at its heart, it’s simply a story about friendship that tugs on the heartstrings.

Things sure do go sideways for two best gal pals Abby, and Gretchen, when these two, along with some other friends, take LSD and venture off into the woods. One thing leads to another, and Gretchen fucks around and gets possessed. Let that be a lesson to all you acid heads out there.

Throughout the book, Abby has to deal with devilishly mean High School girls, jocks, cliques, and all while trying to save her best friend’s soul.

Abby tries to seek adult help in her dilemma but is continually dismissed by her elders. She eventually finds a hero in Brother Lemon, a member of a Christian boy band, the Lemon Brothers Faith and Fitness Show, who agrees to help her. I won’t spoil any more of the story here, so you will just have to read it yourself.

But, the common themes and tropes of a demonic possession tale are all accounted for and present in this book, but I still think the author delivers something unique to the story. I loved that each chapter was named after a song from the 80s, songs like “Don’t You Forget About Me,” “We Got the Beat,” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

If you were born in the late ’70s or early ’80s, you are indeed the author’s ideal target market.

You are going to laugh. You will squirm and cringe. You will take a stroll down memory lane. You will obey Satan, you will destroy your friends, all Hail Satan…. wait..what? What just happened?

Anyways, you will enjoy this book. Go read it right now.

Also, don’t do drugs. Or do, I don’t really care, you are an adult, but your chances of demonic possession go up. You have been warned.