Witchcraft For Wayward Girls - Grady Hendrix

Horror

Rating: 8/10

The wayward girls are the bad girls, the troubled girls, the needy girls, the selfish girls, the girls who need too much attention, the girls from broken homes, the girls who need discipline, the girls who couldn’t turn away from lustful thoughts. They had been taught all their lives that the devil was the worst thing in the world, they were too young to understand that there were worse things waiting to be unearthed. So much worse.

Fern arrives at Wellwood House for unwed mothers during the sweltering summer of 1970. She quickly befriends a group of other girls including Rose who is intent on keeping her baby, Zinnia who believes a happily ever after with her baby’s father is possible, and Holly who refuses to speak. They form a close bond as they try to find moments of joy as the adults around them control their every move, every thought and every word out of their mouths.

And then a librarian gives them a book on the occult, and they decide to test out a spell, it’s just harmless fun. Just a dabble. Probably. But then it works and suddenly the book begins to rewrite itself, the spells becoming much darker and more dangerous.

I have long loved this author, his satirical spin on horror tropes, his way of pulling out the small, singular details to paint a vivid picture for the reader, his gift of imbuing his characters with flaws and foibles. Even the villainous ones.

Book Pairing(s):My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones, Sirens by Emilia Hart