My Best Friend's Exorcism

I am proclaiming October the (unintentional) month of Grady Hendrix since I ended up borrowing this novel from the library, after having loved both versions of the cover for a while, as well as having started another book by him last week, and never mentally putting the 2 books together as having the same author. (One version is the yearbook page, with the girl turned away, and the other looks like an old videotape cover.)And every time I did focus on the author name I thought it sounded familiar. I finally realized I'd reviewed a book by him years ago for a site I used to work for. The book was a satirical novel called [b:Satan Loves You 11261906 Satan Loves You Grady Hendrix https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1333896441s/11261906.jpg 16188715], and I loved it, with it's feel of Good Omens and Christopher Moore. So, it really makes sense that I loved My Best Friend's Exorcism, with the fun covers, and the mock ups of 80s ads, news articles, etc. The book was schlocky, funny, and creepy, but the characters weren't sacrificial as they often are in horror, and by that I mean they were real, fleshed out characters as opposed to bags of blood to sacrifice for gross outs and scares. The friendship of Abby and Gretchen, from its beginning on, felt real. The 80s references were deep and on point. And if you happened to be a teen girl back then, it feels like you're transported back to that time. Okay, I'll admit I cried at the end. The end of the occasionally schlocky horror novel. Because, yeah. Lastly, there's a dog in the book. The horror novel. You know where this is going. The dog dies, like they almost always do in horror, and often we get to imagine the dog's feelings of confusion as the person they love betrays them. I respect the effectiveness of this in horror novels -- the demon/serial killer/vampire means business. But at the point when the reader knows with 98% accuracy this will happen when there is a pet in the book, it might be time to do something else. Call me a nutbag animal lover, but as much as I love horror, this trope is the #1 reason I read so little of it. And, yeah, I know I need to take this up with a therapist. Anyhow, Grady Hendricks is a very good writer, as I found out and then forgot years ago, and I can't wait to really delve into [b:Paperbacks from Hell: A History of Horror Fiction from the '70s and '80s 33670466 Paperbacks from Hell A History of Horror Fiction from the '70s and '80s Grady Hendrix https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1504436657s/33670466.jpg 54542087]!