My Best Friend's Exorcism

Charleston, 1988. Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade, bonded by E.T., roller rinks, and the small daily loyalties of teenage girlhood. Then one night of skinny-dipping and a hit of acid in the woods goes badly wrong, and afterwards Gretchen is different — withdrawn, cruel, and increasingly wrong in ways no one else seems to notice. As Gretchen's behaviour grows more disturbing and the people around them start getting hurt, Abby becomes convinced that whatever came back from the woods is not entirely her friend anymore.

Grady Hendrix wraps a genuinely frightening story of demonic possession in a loving, hyper-detailed pastiche of the late 1980s, from mixtapes and mall culture to the era's satanic-panic anxieties. Beneath the period gags and mounting body horror, though, the novel is really about the ferocity of teenage friendship and how far one girl will go to save another.

By turns funny, gross, and surprisingly moving, My Best Friend's Exorcism uses its horror premise to take adolescent loyalty completely seriously. It builds toward a climactic exorcism that is as much about love and stubbornness as it is about the supernatural.