My Best Friend's Exorcism: A Novel

Soon to be a major motion picture.

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, this unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist blends teen angst and unspeakable horrors into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller.


The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act…different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby. Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries—and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

BUY THE BOOK

Published Jul 11, 2017

336 pages

Average rating: 7.26

379 RATINGS

|

These clubs recently read this book...

Thrills, Chills, and Charms

This is a book club for readers who crave the strange, the thrilling, and the otherworldly! Each month we meet and have coffee and discuss the book!

Thrillers by the Bookclub Philly

Calling all thriller lovers in the Philadelphia region! We exclusively read thrillers, mysteries, and whodunnit’s. Welcome to all, can’t wait to meet

Midnight Literary Society

We'll be reading mystery, horror, psych thriller, and some paranormal books under 400 pages. Not new releases. 18+

Community Reviews

What Bookclubbers are saying about this book

✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI

Readers say *My Best Friend’s Exorcism* captures 1980s nostalgia and the complexity of female friendship with a unique blend of horror and humor. Fans...

siemelle900
Nov 28, 2025
8/10 stars
Abby and Gretchen have been friends since the fourth grade. One night (as teenagers in 1988) they are at a friend’s house boating, swimming, tanning, and experimenting with LSD when a very naked Gretchen jumps into the water and ends up getting lost in the woods. When her friends find her the next morning, she is disoriented and not behaving like herself. As the days go by, she becomes more and more different until it’s clear something happened to Gretchen in those woods. Abby is determined to find out what.

This is a book for those that love the nostalgia of the 1980s. However, research your trigger warnings beforehand because some of what happens in this book is disgusting and there is one very upsetting moment involving a dog.

While I enjoyed it, there is something about it that holds me back from giving it 5 stars, but I can’t put my finger on what! Maybe the ending was a bit anticlimactic with the final confrontation? I don’t know! However, definitely a solid horror read!
jess.withbooks
Jun 05, 2025
10/10 stars
“She and Gretchen spent hours ranking their friendships, trying to determine who was a best friend and who was an everyday friend, debating whether anyone could have two best friends at the same time, writing each other's names over and over in purple ink, buzzed on the dopamine high of belonging to someone else, having a total stranger choose you, someone who wanted to know you, another person who cared that you were alive.
She and Gretchen were best friends, and then came that fall. And they fell. And the exorcist saved her life.”
ClinicallyBookish
Apr 14, 2025
9/10 stars
"The devil is loud and brash and full of drama." Fun! Retro! Everything I adore about the eighties is in here. Madonna, Weird Al, Judy Blume, ET, Silver Spoons, jelly shoes, roller skating... Plus, a teenager possessed by a demon, hell-bent on ruining lives and wreaking havoc. “Y’all want to talk to Satan?” Can we talk about how often, when I was a teen, my mother asked "what possessed" me? I was convinced SHE was the one who was the devil incarnate. Adolescence is so hard.
BriannaBond
Mar 17, 2025
3.58 stars
Summer1108
Jan 22, 2025
4/10 stars
Oof....well, I liked the cover art.

See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.