Cannonball Read 11

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My Best Friend’s Exorcism – A nostalgic and wild ride

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

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What a wild and crazy ride this book was! Equal parts, horror, humor, coming of age, and a nostalgic love letter to the 1980s. Looking back at that sentence it is clear that Hendrix was being a bit ambitious in scope, as this is a lot to balance, but he does so with ease. I don’t remember ever vacillating so quickly and constantly from laughter to terror, but the pendulum swings back and forth again and again over the course of this book. What starts out as a sweet story of friendship between Gretchen and Abby takes a quick turn […]

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5/15/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:18 |

You Got Me Readin’ Hell’s Bells

Paperbacks From Hell by Grady Hendrix

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Dave Eggers has written that his mother read a horror novel every night. “I couldn’t look at her books,” he wrote. “[I] would turn them over so their covers wouldn’t show, the raised lettering and splotches of blood–especially the V.C. Andrews oeuvre, those turgid pictures of those terrible kids, standing so still, all lit in blue.” If that was ever true of Grady Hendrix, great enthusiast of and advocate for grim books, it’s not now. The author of Horrorstor has put out a celebration of the kind of paperbacks that featured terrible kids, or naked women impaled by knives, or leprechauns whose […]

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7/9/2018 's CBR10 Review No:4 |

She remembers when the word “friend” could draw blood

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

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This was one of those books that I noticed on the shelf and pretty much decided to buy before I even picked it up. The cover is designed like a video rental jacket from the 80’s, front to back, right down to the “Be Kind, Rewind” sticker, and it’s like I had no choice. I still remember in fourth grade when the one liquor store in town started renting VCRs and movies on VHS, and just looking at this book brought back the sights and sounds and smells of that place. The book itself ticked pretty much all of the […]

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3/2/2018 's CBR10 Review No:11 |

If IKEA was built on the site of an abandoned super scary prison

Horrorstor: A Novel by Grady Hendrix

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So in my profile writeup, I say that I have a hard time not finishing books.  I tried really hard to finish this book.  At first the issue was that the story was a little dark and creepy, which I love.  However, I read my Kindle books at night, and dark and creepy doesn’t really connect well with me sleeping!  This made it a little more difficult, because I had to read during lunch at work, or at a time during daylight.  I kept trying to get back to it, and I had to take it out of my library […]

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11/6/2017 's CBR9 Review No:54 |

I read this book in one sitting

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

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But I’m not really sure why. But there must have been something I liked to read it all at once. So why the 3 star rating? Well friends, in this house we deduct major points for a book that spends all of its time queerbaiting its readers. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and as glaring as it is this isn’t my only problem with the book. So let’s start at the beginning. Our story opens with Abby Rivers, now a successful adult with a generic job in a nondescript office, discovering that the exorcist has died. This isn’t really […]

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7/2/2017 's CBR9 Review No:1 |

Well, the cover’s cool, but as they say…

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

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Why do people like this book? Am I missing something? I get it. Bad writing and an improbable plot that could also operate as a pasta strainer have united like a defective pair of power twins before to create cult successes (I’m looking at you Sharknado). And really, there is a whole genre of bad horror films…but does it work with books, too? I’m not a horror book reader, so I’m sincerely asking. Why do people think this book is so scary? Creepy kids? Scary. Does this book have creepy kids? No. Psychological drama? Can be scary. Like when someone […]

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2/4/2017 's CBR9 Review No:8 |

If you liked A Head Full of Ghosts, read this one

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

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Grady Henrix wrote this fantastic book called Horrorstör, about a haunted Ikea-knock off, that I just loved. It was weird and gross and all around awesome. His next novel, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, does not disappoint; in fact, it’s even weirder and grosser and awesomer. “‘Hot damn!’, he shouted. ‘We got ourselves a demon!’” Set in the 1980s (and wonderfully so — this book is packed to the gills with 80s pop culture), My Best Friend’s Exorcism is about…well, exactly that. Abby’s best friend Gretchen disappears into the forest at a party one night, tripping acid. She shows back up the next morning, naked […]

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8/4/2016 's CBR8 Review No:152 |

IKEA Instructions Are Equally Terrifying

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

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Horrorstor has been sitting on my GoodReads list of books to read for a long time now, so imagine my surprise when I popped into my local library to grab some less boring bedtime reading materials for my minions and there it was, sitting all shiny and new…waiting for me. The premise is pretty simple.  A particular American IKEA knockoff store called ORSK is experiencing vandalism in the middle of the night.  The vandalism must be occurring between 2 and 7 am each night when the security lights inside the store shut down (side note: why would they do that?). […]

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4/24/2015 's CBR7 Review No:33 |


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