Reviews with content warning for Self harm - The Exorcist

A fast-paced, occasionally info-heavy, great read. It has realistic humour, cold hatred, compassion, ignorance, faith, lost faith and sadness all composed in a really believable way (accepting certain beliefs and possibilities of course). Great characters and you can smell, hear, taste certain scenes and I tell you, you do not want to. What I would recommend you do, however, is read it. Unless you are squeamish or easily offended, then do not.

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sjsantilli19's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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louiepotterbook's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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drewanslee's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

My feelings are complicated. I cannot possibly assign a star rating to this book.

The book itself reads more like a modern thriller than a horror, moving at a quick pace with constant swerves. The dialogue is quick and often witty. I had seen the movie a couple of times but I had forgotten what a long and winding path there is to the iconic scene chosen for the movie's poster. The language in this book astounds me. Blatty has some amazing turns of phrase, and the way he writes when following the third-person perspective of Father Marrin was exquisite. It's a true page turner to this day. It's not perfect: the character of Dennings is completely absurd, having our doubting priest character be ethnically Jewish sure is a Choice, and the ending is jarringly abrupt. I'd like to read another novel like it.

And yet... Like how Psycho and Silence of the Lambs both explicitly state that the serial killers in the movies are not trans, and yet still fed into and reinforced narratives of bigotry about trans women, I can't help but think about this book in relation to the Satanic Panic. This book was published nine years before Michelle Remembers acted as the torch igniting the pyre of that horrid moment in history, but I can't shake the feeling that it was one of many logs present in that fire. The characters in this novel are absolutely convinced that the Black Mass exists, that blood libel is on some level real, and that in the moment it was published there were groups out there doing ritual sacrifice. Did you know when put under the highly suggestive state of hypnosis to "recall repressed memories", many people actually wind up recalling movies they've seen? How many people were convinced they were abused by a satanic cult when they were actually remembering scenes from the movie adaptation of this book? Is that the fault of the book, or the society the book was published in? I don't know and I can't stop thinking about it.

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