Reviews with content warning for Cursing - The Exorcist: 40th Anniversary Edition

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.

Content Warnings

fakeppy's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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beanformation's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

It was much more informative about the process you have to go through with the church to get an exorcism and the history of demonic possession in history. I thoroughly enjoyed the book as a book and as a horror fan!

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madelinequinnee's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense slow-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? Yes

4.0

A bit of a slow burn, for a book called ‘The Exorcist’ i was surprised that only the last chapter actually dealt with an exorcism, but this was still a great book to read and definitely deserving of its horror classic title.

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gnraud's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Very, very good book. It's very intense and it's a lot more graphic than the movie in a lot more ways. If it were a direct movie it would be NC-17.

Read it when you have plenty of time to put the book down and process what you just read; in a place where no one can glance over your shoulder and see obscenities; and nowhere near mealtimes.

I recommend reading an ebook instead of paper, if you can. This has some pretty intense vocabulary ("inchoate presentiment", anyone?) and it would have been very helpful to be able to define them quickly. There are also some snippets of other languages (ie, Latin during liturgy) and I'm sure it would be much easier to translate in an ebook!

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