Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

16 reviews

lv_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

Loved the best friends! An exciting read but wish the ending was a little more hashed out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Racial slurs, and Rape

renpuspita's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

4.0

  The premise and execution of My Best Friend's Exorcism remind me of Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampire. A female heroine vs a big baddie in the form of man. Although, I think Hendrix might use the basic of Exorcism for Southern since this book released first. However I reduce the star because

why the dog die? WHY and WHYYYY Hendrix? Is that scene necessary? IS IT????? .

Just like Southern and Horrorstor, I admit that Hendrix is one of few male authors that their book I'd read that can write female characters. Exorcism's heroine is literally a teenager and the 80's setting kinda bring nostalgia although the said nostalgia is more like songs that I know (Like a Virgin, Against all Odd). Reading this book test my patience, because the way Abby, Gretchen, Margaret and Glee written. Because, they ARE teenager. Teenager supposed to be annoying, I suppose. There are some scenes when Abby act so stupid I want to smack her head, but I remind myself, Abby is a teenager. I act stupid too in my teenager era, lel. 

The core of this book is ofc like stated in the title, is the friendship between Abby and Gretchen. Yes, their motto "I love you dearly but not queerly" is kind of problematic although in the end they amend that. The test that Abby and Gretchen endured, especially from Abby's side is extraordinary. Reading the scenes when Abby attacked by demon-Gretchen in which Abby shunned by her friends remind me when in Southern's BC Patricia's sanity also questioned when she accuse James Harris for being a vampire. To said my emotions doing a roller coaster is an understatement. Just like Horrorstor, this book also filled with many 80's things, such as band poster, radio logo, pamphlet, etc. 

As for the exorcism, we got the exorcism. BUT, not the way I imagine at first. The demon got banished by

the power of friendship and love between Abby and Gretchen

, it's so campy to read and left me dumbfounded. As per Hendrix's tradition, so many disturbing scenes to read. The scene when Margaret throw up something something disgusting will make me questioning any diet supplements and it's make me shudder just for imagining it. Contrary to Horrorstor and Southern BC, the creepiness factor is not much so if you don't like ghost, this book don't have ghost in it. Only demon, a nasty demon that love to bring discord and chaos. The 80's setting also mean there's racism like the scene when Abby tell Margaret that she look like Ethiophian because Margaret is so thin because of her sickness make me go WTF. Yeah, so many offensive things happen so proceed with cautions and please check the TW/CW list first.

If I ranked Hendrix's book that I had read, this book ranked the third. Southern BC still number one for me, followed by Horrorstor. If you want to read about horror that have possession on it with at least a decent exorcism scenes and the roller-coaster emotion that follow, My Best Friend's Exorcism might be right up of your alley. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Cursing, Drug use, Gore, Racial slurs, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, and Abandonment

Minor: Rape

jerbarger's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

At first, MY BEST FRIENDS EXORCISM really annoyed me because it felt like a man writing about teenage girls (which it is, obviously, but there often comes this sort of tone and misunderstanding of what it is to be a teenage girl—and sometimes even this underlying dislike). 

I also didn’t appreciate all the casual racism and references to sexual assault. I see what Hendrix was trying to do and set the picture of the South, but it wasn’t ever really indicted? Like it seemed he did not approve from the tone of the main character when she mentioned these things but it was totally glossed over and also THERE WERE ONLY WHITE PEOPLE, so tell me how this improves the conversation? It doesn’t. And it almost made me stop reading the book. 

With all of that being said, it is a rather interesting and unique coming-of-age story. Her best friend is possessed by a demon, but who’s the real monster? The adults who don’t believe children? Society? Classism? The way Abby goes from feeling like a child to having the understanding that we are all truly alone in this world is devastating. And that’s what MY BEST FRIEND’S EXORCISM did best. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Cursing, Drug use, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Cultural appropriation, and Alcohol

shaunashares's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Eating disorder, Gore, Blood, Abortion, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Homophobia, Racial slurs, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: Mass/school shootings

aseel_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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

3.75

This was a wild ride. It definitely felt authentic to the 80s, which was such an interesting (and not as great) time. I find it hard to rate the book any higher because of the subject matter but I did like the ending about friendship. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

killmoore_'s review against another edition

dark funny slow-paced

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

2.5

Lemme start by saying that I love Grady Hendrix. Southern Bookclub is one of my all time favorites, and I've truly enjoyed everything I've read by him - until I read this.

Okay.. first.. are we not going to talk about the amount of times Hendrix wrote Abbys parents as "Mr or Mrs Lang" instead of Rivers? It bugged the hell out of me. The editing in this was attrocious. Multiple weird character mixups throughout that I latched on to, and it honestly kind of ruined the rest of the book for me, haha. Also, what was the point of the entire first chapter? 

It was slow. It was corny. It was a bit painful to read at times. The exorcism itself was a bit lack luster, and the characters were shallow and forgettable (looking at you Lemon). The only saving grace here was Margaret's story, and honestly, she deserved it. 

If 80's cheese horror/teenage bimbo drama is your cup of tea, Grady nailed it. Lots of feel good friendship moments, some mildly yucky body horror, and a lot of language that is frowned upon these days.

Considering the rhythm and quality of Hendrixs other novels, this truly felt like he had a deadline coming up and pushed this out as quickly as possible. It's a shame. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

vreyna20_2004's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

The story had potential but fell flat. Grady said he had the title planned and not the plot and you can tell by how slow it started and how fast pace it ended. The plot picks up 40% into the book. FOURTY PERCENT. And that’s only when Gretchen brings it up. It takes until page 254 or 56% for Abby to do anything. It’s fine when authors want to explain the backstory of things to get into detail about what is going on before we’re face into the issue, but 56%?? Seriously??? This book could’ve been cut in HALF if Abby had the BALLS to just ask her friend Gretchen what was going on with her but instead she didn’t. They’re high schoolers, yes I know that but seriously even that time kids were curious of things and had no filter. I’ve heard that the story was “a happy ending” but it left me unsatisfied. I wanted Margret to get dumped by Gretchen and Abby. I wanted Glee to come and for the girls to tell her off (she was as bad maybe more than Margaret) and I wanted a better ending for Christian Lemon. When he “confessed” to his crimes I was shocked I didn’t want him to do it but understood why he did it but for him to end up working as an instructor just felt unsatisfying. The story had potential and it fell flat. I would not forgive Grady for killing Max.

I’ve heard people saying how this is how they talked during the 80s and that it’s totally okay and that’s why they love this book. Grow up. Honestly. This book may take place in the 80s but the book was written in 2016. If you can’t do the math I’ll help you, that’s 7 years ago. And the author (a WHITE CIS-MALE mind you) wrote this book should’ve been my first red flag but it was free to hear so I didn’t mind it. Besides the whole fetishization of Abby’s father’s part with having a big black woman on a vhs tape, the school having a “slave day”, Abby and Gretchen having to say “Dearly But Not Queerly” just to say they love each other, the casual mention of slurs, and the purity talk (I don’t mind this since everyone had the right to choose when to sleep with someone), and worst of all the blackface. Also some people on Goodreads are saying that cancel culture is gonna cancel this book. No one is saying that they’re canceling Grady for writing this. The issue is him contributing into it and using the excuse of “we did this back in the day” well this was written 7 years ago he knew not to put the r-slur in the book but he did. He also knew not to put the over sexualization of a black women (which thanks to porn is still happening). The reason why people bring such topics up in their reviews is to warn others to not read this if they don’t want to. And I haven’t seen a page in the book with trigger warnings. I only found out because of tiktok that this would happen.

But besides all that, the one thing that made me not give this not even a 2.50 rating was the fact that Christian Lemon confessed to the crimes and that Good Dog Max died. I would never forget Grady Hendrix.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Vomit, and Alcohol

Minor: Rape and Violence

Black face. It has black face and fetishization of black women.

jbfletcher's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

It was a wonderful, wonderful ride. It's a story of friendship and love at any cost, despide all the odds. I really love Grady Hendrix stories, they usually stay with me for a long time. I also think that for my generation (i was born in the 80s), this is a more relatable representation of femal friendship than, for example, My brilliant friend. I'd just not inserted ableist and racial slurs (this just one), that for me were unnecessary, but a part from this i really loved this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, and Classism

hailstorm_101's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Gore, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Classism

melliedm's review against another edition

dark funny fast-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

3.5

A gross, fast-paced, campy story of friendship in the face of growing up (and demons). 

Felt like the sapphic undertones were purposeful (lampshades! Lampshades everywhere!), but completely unfulfilled. How you can go from DBNQ to DAQ and then tell me how they ended and miss the chance to complete the sentence is a disappointment. But it was a fun read despite that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Slavery