Warning to those reading NetGalley reviews before requesting: there are some spoilers ahead (I wish I could spoiler-mark like I can on Goodreads, but here we are). I am aware of NG's policy against spoilers in reviews, but the (light) spoilers I DO mention I feel are extremely important to what I'm trying to start a conversation about this novel. Either way, they're towards the end of my review.

Honestly, it's kind of hilarious that I was given access to this book early, seeing as I am a Noted Hater of a lot of Hendrix's work - I'm considering going back and rereading the one book of his I enjoyed, just to see if it actually holds up at all.

Nevertheless, if Hendrix knows how to do one thing, it's come up with an intriguing book premise. After reading the book's blurb, I couldn't help myself from requesting an ARC, just to see if he could pull it off this time, since he's always failed before for me.

Unsurprisingly, he did fail to write a book that lives up to the premise. Honestly, the guy should stick to writing cool ideas for books, and then giving those ideas to authors who actually know how to craft something interesting around it, authors who are able to dig deep into the themes and provide their own worldview to create something thought-provoking and horrific.

All this being said, I did find myself enjoying the first half of the book. Teenage (heavily pregnant) girls hanging out, bonding, picking up a book of witchcraft and trying spells and curses out. It's like picking up a cheap D-movie horror from the 70s up at a Blockbuster (they still exist in this analogy because Hendrix is obsessed with making sure we know he remembers things from The Good Old Days) and knowing there's not going to be much substance to the film, but hey, at least it's enjoyable, and the horror's pretty effective. Some of the many jumbled, indistinguishable characters managed to capture my attention, and thankfully they were in the main cast of characters.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the main character, who was as boring and same-y as all the other women/girls Hendrix makes his protagonists. Look, I get why - she's a stand-in for the audience, she has her real name and identity stripped away from her at the Home, she could be any one of us (as long as a white woman is reading, which seems to be his target audience), etc. But the entire time, I was just wondering why the story couldn't have been told from the point of view of someone actually interesting, like Rose or Holly, who were the REAL main characters of this book. It's not fun to watch someone else be the main character.

And, like I said, at about 50% of the way through the book it becomes a boring chore to read. I was skim-reading a good chunk of it because I just wanted it to be over, really, and other than the parts of the plot that needed to happen, nothing else of substance was there.

I think my main issue, if I had to narrow it down, is that Hendrix always loves to tackle themes about women and feminism and empowerment - from his white cis male perspective - but, perhaps BECAUSE of that, everything he tries to talk about feels surface-level. "Women and girls should be able to be in control of their pregnancy and the baby they have been carrying, and no one else has the right to strip their decisions away from them!" is basically the message of this book, and, like...yes, that's true! Do you have anything else to add? Spoiler: he doesn't. This is why I think he should just stick to coming up with book ideas, and handing them off to other people. I think someone else could have done something so interesting and thought-provoking with this concept - particularly, someone who has the ability to carry a baby in the first place. Unfortunately, we're left with this drag of a book. Surface-level, corny, D-movie. And not even one of the FUN D-movies, either.

(This next paragraph's the spoiler part, but, again, I feel it's an important discussion that should be had about the book and Hendrix's body of work as a whole. It has been slightly altered from my Goodreads review.)

I also want to touch on another issue that arose with me throughout this book, and then, upon reflecting, because an issue that casts a stain across the rest of Hendrix's work: his representation of race, particularly Black women. One of the main characters, Zinnia, is a Black girl, and my issue isn't with how she's written - although, crucially, I am a White reader; perhaps there are people of colour who have problems with how she's portrayed. I didn't see any from other advanced copy readers who are PoC before/while writing this. My issue lies with Hagar and Miriam, who are Black housemaids at the Home. I grew increasingly uncomfortable with how Hendrix wrote them, starting from them being Black housemaids in the first place - even if it's historically accurate, I guess, but there's also literal fucking magic going on, but I digress - and then into how it's revealed they know about the witch coven, and know their own magic to circumvent it, which treads into the territory of the Magical Negro trope. These Black women help save the poor white girls with their magic and by the girls insisting that Hagar and Miriam risk their own safety and livelihood by helping them deliver a baby. Miriam barely even speaks; when Hagar does, it's sprinkled with aggression and sass. It's not great. And then I got to reflecting on how Black characters are treated in his past books and it puts a sour taste in my mouth. I have no doubt about it that Black readers have spoken up about this before; I feel a certain level of embarrassment for it only having hit me as a continuous issue with Hendrix this far into reading his books. Already, early reviewers are speaking up about how Hagar's written (I haven't linked them, but with this review being up so early on Goodreads before its publication date, just scroll past the walls of white reviewers dishing out 5-stars and you'll see them), and I hope that, when the book is published, people actually, finally, listen to Black readers and notice this concurrent pattern of Black mis-representation in the novels of Grady Hendrix.

Ultimately, this book is... well, it's readable. It has horror scenes that work, if that's all you care about. But there's better work you could be reading. Better horror by authors of colour are out there, and you should read them instead of this. I know, that going forward, that's what I'll be doing.

‘What do you think people do to witches when they notice them? They get burned.’

Wow. This feels so relevant in the face of the current political climate in America & the pain & fear that so many people are experiencing. This book was absolutely horror… but the most frightening elements were firmly rooted in reality. Was it gruesome in places? Yes. Were there supernatural elements? Yes. Was the part that filled me with a sick, nauseating fear something that ACTUALLY HAPPENS & will continue to happen over & over again? Honestly I could cry just thinking about it. This wrenched my heart as a mother but also just as a woman. Far scarier, in my opinion, than your basic slasher.

Grady Hendrix is an autobuy author for me at this point. Eerie, feminist horror with a grisly cut of commentary… *chefs kiss* a feminist man, raging against the system beside us - you have my heart forever.

’Every price must be paid. So why do the same people pay it, over & over again. Why do the same people always bleed?’

I am a big fan of Grady Hendrix. His style has some very distinctive features. A big fan of 70s and 80s horror, he builds on it and reimagines it for a modern audience. His books can be very camp but they also often pack a surprisingly heartfelt and sincere emotional punch. He is, for a white middle aged guy, unexpectedly good at writing teenage girls. His Southern novels have a strong sense of place and identity, but they often suffer, as many white authors of Southern Gothic do, from his awkward inability to meaningfully engage with race. At his worst, he over-fetishizes the pain women's bodies endure in the horror scenarios he creates (I'll never forget that grandma from the Southern Vampire book). Overall, you know what to expect from a Grady Hendrix novel, the good, the bad and the ugly, and the specific mix of the features of his distinctive style can land anywhere between a 2 and a 5 star read for me, normally hovering somewhere around the 4 star mark.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls packs a very timely message, relevant now more than ever. Fiercely critical of mistreatment of teenage pregnant girls in the 1950s and 60s, Witchcraft makes a powerful argument for bodily autonomy. The novel is mostly a coming of age story of just how horrifying it was to be a (young) woman in America before Roe vs Wade. The story beautifully comes together by the end, and the epilogue, by far the best part of the entire book, leaves an emotional mark, whilst unapologetically delivering its key message.

Not everything worked well in the novel. The pacing is quite off - the slow build up without any supernatural elements in the first 40% or so is important but excruciating to get through. The more serious and sombre tone limits the extent to which Hendrix can indulge in postmodernist camp, something he excels at in My Best Friend's Exorcism and Horrorstor.

Not typical for Hendrix, the characters of the teenage girls are not very engaging. Fern, the protagonist, never quite comes into her own, Rose, the leftie, reads like a caricature, and Zinnia is a Black woman written by a well-meaning white man terrified to say the wrong thing about Black women, and thus quite sensible, bland and boring. Fern's character arc is very clear and well executed, but she never feels like a distinctive person, reading more like a protagonist archetype.

I found the treatment of the witch coven somewhat muddled. On the one hand, it continues Hendrix' pushback against glamorising traditional horror antagonists, central to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. Witches are not girlbossified, they are genuinely harmful and dangerous. I appreciated that the women of the coven were marginalised, as historic witches tended to be. As a professional early modernist, I am sick of the 'women accused of witchcraft were powerful and men wanted to rein them in' narrative. They were not. They were the most defenceless and most vulnerable women in the community - the old, the disabled, the poor. The privileged propertied educated women were very unlikely to be ever accused of witchcraft. I appreciated that Witchcraft followed the original historic narratives in this regard. By the end of the novel, Hendrix brings the themes of sisterhood, coven, care and communal power to the forefront of his depiction, which makes it more typical of the representation of witches in contemporary female authored narratives. However, it takes away from his push to write more 'evil' witches, and he U-turn is neither explained nor meaningfully justified narratively. Which one is it, Mr Hendrix? Are witches harmful ruthless harpies who will do what it takes to protect what is theirs because the world has taken away too much from them, or are they caring sisters in power?

The treatment of the Black characters really disappointed me. Similarly to the Southern Book Club, the very capable no bullshit less privileged than the main cast Black woman is pushed to the margins of the narrative. Moreover, she really suffers from the Magical Minority syndrome, only wheeled out when the protagonists need some help and support. She always delivers, even when it could hurt her personally and professionally, even though she tries to assert her boundaries. I'd like to hope that Hendrix tried to reimagine and consciously work with the stereotype, but he was not successful. I appreciated that Zinnia was written as a very wealthy Black girl among less privileged white ones, challenging some stereotypes, but at the end of the day she had very little going in terms of personality or anything that made her narratively identifiable as Black (sans a couple of details here and there). Would her experience in this house in Florida in 1969 really been as invisibly smooth as Hendrix wrote it?

The pacing, the tone, the indulgence of descriptions of women's pain and the decentring of Black characters all really reminded me of the Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. However, the Southern book had a more authentic sense of place and time. I really enjoyed the last couple of chapters and the epilogue, but I know that Grady Hendrix can do better.

I wasn't a fan of this. The beginning was so slow and boring that I had already lost all interest in the story before we even got to the halfway mark; afterwards it got a little better, but not by much. The plot was very simple, you could basically guess everything that was going to happen and it really didn't feel like a horror book. It felt more like a historical fiction. I also think there were way too many characters to keep track and we didn't need to know so much about every single person, no one was really that interesting. The book also could have been half the length and still cover the exact same plot.

Grady Hendrix is a favourite of mine, the campy horror vibes in this book is exactly what I expected and I loved it so much.

The book tells the story of young women who were sent away to have their babies in secret. This was a common practice in the South, and it was often done to protect the women's reputations. The book is well-written and the characters are believable. It is a powerful story that will stay with you long after you finish reading it.

Absolutely brilliant, loved it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me an advance copy, I will definitely be recommending.

Set in the 1960s this book tells the story of a group of girls aged 14-17 who find themselves pregnant and are shipped off by their various families to a home in Florida to have their babies, give them up and return back afterwards. Whilst there a group of the girls end up tangled in a coven and witchcraft, searching for a way to protect themselves but inevitably end up getting tangled in something bigger than they expected.

This books is a brilliant example of the bond between women and the support we can offer each other. Each character has their own separate, well written personality and the setting is bleak and perfectly captured.
In all honesty as much as the witchcraft becomes well woven into the tale I found it was secondary to the relationships of the characters and enhanced the story without out becoming a focal point.
Well paced and written, I really enjoyed this book and read it two sittings

Thankyou to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

A group of pregnant teenagers in a home for ‘wayward girls’ discover a book on witchcraft and learn how to take power in a world that will not grant it for free.


This book felt a bit slow to begin with—but I think that did fit the story being told, and it only felt odd at first because it isn’t what I had expected from Hendrix. It’s not a fast-paced thriller sort of horror. It’s a horror based on our real world and real experiences. For the first 100ish pages there’s not anything speculative—the horror comes from the reality of the home for wayward girls.

Our protagonist starts off in a pretty terrible place: Pregnant, abandoned by her family and shamed by everyone around her. Fern isn’t the most traditional protagonist to begin with, and she is never fully active in her own decisions, but that’s sort of the point. She isn’t allowed agency by society, and for me the novel is about how to live a life you are not in charge of—this theme is reflected in the storyline of the librarian witch, and though I was not expecting the direction this part of the book took, Hendrix pulled off his take on witchcraft/power with skill and nuance.

Hendrix’s statement on his website complemented the experience of reading this book perfectly. He acknowledges that as a man, he is not the obvious person to write a book like this; but he describes the research he did, all the women who helped him along the way, and concludes: ‘Ultimately, I may not have gotten this one right, but I hope I got more things right than wrong’. This statement made me really respect Hendrix and be confident his intentions were good. Having now read the book, his genuine care and detailed research shone through. No book is perfect, but it is clear this book at least has heart. A surprising novel from Hendrix, and one that will stay with me for a long time.

It’s not often I write negative reviews. I feel I wasted time reading this. It’s overly long and could have been half its length. The message throughout was warped. So it felt like there was no survivor. I liked the main characters but it was slow. This book is unsettling but not in a good way.

I’ve finished this book today and I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed as to how the story went. The beginning was very slow and I honestly hadn’t the slightest idea where the story was heading. The concept felt a bit strange to me or maybe I just wasn’t the target audience for this specific book. I also frowned when seeing how Hendrix described/wrote some things down and I had the same feeling with one of his other books so I wonder if he does it on purpose to make the reader feel uneasy or if he really feels that kind of way. I’m going to go with three stars, just because I think there was potential.

This is going to be a film with young american actresses in great clothes set against a fall Academic backdrop right?

Girls taken to a school for weyward girls get their hands on books on witchcraft and then all hell breaks loose. I had such great fun with this book and read it during halloween so yeah me for maximum witchy vibes. This book has plenty though so you don't need extras.

I had a really hard time getting into the book, to be honest. I found out main character to be.. lacking, although I'm pretty sure that was exactly the point.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is the latest from horror icon Grady Hendrix. I’ve been a steady fan for a while now, although his last book didn’t 100% do it for me. WfWG is not just a return to form, but I would argue Hendrix’s best book to date.

I’m gonna include a content warning here for some childbirth scenes that may be hard for some to read; an episiotomy is described in detail, as is a shoulder dystocia (as a midwife, this is a really terrifying scenario😟). It all felt well researched though; the intent of the author very much feels benevolent, like he wants to show us the extent of what these girls go through with little to no kindness or support from those caring for them. Having recently watched Small Things Like Things, the similarities between the home described in this book and the laundry depicted in Clare Keegan’s masterpiece have distinct similarities. There’s a strong sense of injustice and misogyny throughout both books.
There’s also discussion of child abuse and racism.
I loved that there’s a definite sense of time and place in this book, and a real attention to detail that adds so much to the story.

Yes, there’s a scary coven storyline but the real crux of the horror here is the absolute lack of bodily autonomy, the loss of control over one’s own life, purely because of your gender. Here at least, Fern, Holly, and Zinnia get to take back some of the power stolen from them, even if it is through witchcraft, which asks a serious price of them all.

If you love a witchy tale with a strong feminist leaning, a surprising amount of depth, heart, and a bit of primordial fear added in, this is the book for you. I loved it.

I truly love the idea of men reading this book, expecting the usual Hendrix horror, and getting this little gem filled with the warmth of sisterhood instead. It’ll be good for them.

With many thanks to @netgalley and @panmacmillan for my early copy. All opinions are my own, as always. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is available to buy on the 16th of January.

This was a genuinely unnerving book. I cared about the characters, rooted for them, feared them. I felt the ending lacked something. I'm not sure what, but it just didn't feel enough.

1970s Florida. A home for wayward girls. Unruly girls. Girls in trouble. That's where Neva finds herself during her summer break from high school. Surrounded by girls stuck in the same situation as her, just as lost and just as helpless. But there's been whispers in the dark about witchcraft in the woods, women who bathe in the moonlight and surround themselves in sin. And they could be Neva's way to freedom, a way to keep her baby and help her friends. But help always comes at a price, and it's one Neva isn't willing to pay.

This had a really different tone to Grady Hendrix's other novels. There's less of the black comedy I've come to associate with his stories, and more depth in its discussion of real life horrors over the supernatural. Neva and the other girls are so vulnerable, stuck in a place that gives them no hope that they're susceptible to any influence that comes from outside the home. Any hint of help and they jump on it. Especially Neva, with her dreamer attitude and desire to help others. I really liked seeing her relationship with the girls develop over time, as they begin to rely on each other to see through their anxiety and pain. They only have each other to turn too and they have a common cause.

I always find that the 'evil', more malevolent aspects of Hendrix's stories always feel the same. The horror itself, this dark entity, has a presence that seeps through the story and although it takes a bit of a backseat to Neva's story this time, it still sits and watches through the eyes of the librarian. There's no scary puppets or vampires this time. The horror is firmly in the loss of identify of the girls, with Neva loosing everything about herself, including her name, when she steps through the doors of the Home. It's clever how Hendrix uses this name change to get across Neva's changing identity. Going from Neva to Fern, briefly back to Neva in signing her child's birth certificate, and back again. It's full circle.

The only reason this didn't get 5 stars is that the pacing dips on the middle, as Neva mourned the loss of Rose and her decision. Rose is the rebel of the group, the one who takes the most decisive and direct actions. The hippie. To see her react the same way as every other girl makes Neva turn inward, and this slowed the story somewhat. However, overall this is up there with one of Hendrix's best.

We are the witches, the girls that got away. The ones who survived and chose to live.

This book tells the story of young girls who are unwed and pregnant that are sent away to have their babies in secret.

The story follows Fern and the friends she makes in Wellwood House. These girls have no control over what is happening to them or their babies, so when they are given a book about witchcraft it seems like an answer to their problems. However, they soon learn nothing comes for free.

To be honest the witches in this book was the least scary part. The way these young girls were treated was where the true horror lies.

Thank you to NetGalley, Grady Hendrix and Pan MacMillan for this ARC.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix is an incredible book that managed to give me literal chills while reading - and not all of them were caused by the witchcraft.
Set in 1970, the book follows Fern as she moves into Wellwood House, a home in Florida where unwed teens go to have their babies in secret before they are given up for adoption. While there she befriends several of the other girls, Rose, a hippie who is determined to keep her baby, Zinnia a young Black aspiring musician and Fern , a terrified fourteen year old who barely speaks and is terrified of the father of her baby. Life in the home is far from easy with draconian rules, manipulative staff and a brutal and misogynistic doctor, the only comfort the girls find is in each other's company and they all fear what the future holds. When they are given a strange book on occult magic by the local librarian, they treat it as a joke at first, but when they try out some of the spells with rather dramatic consequences they begin to wonder if they can use it to get their freedom back, but it is a slippery slope and the price that they are expected to pay may be far more than any of them are wiling to sacrifice.
This book was absolutely phenomenal, I was gripped from beginning to end. The characters are so well crafted that I found myself worrying about them at times, even when I was not reading the book. Having grown up in a country with a long history of treating unmarried mothers horrifically so many things that were described in the book felt only too real. I'm not sure who I hated more, the doctors or the witches, both were equally terrifying in their own ways. This is not the first book from this author I have read, but it is definitely my favourite and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I read an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

AMAZING!
One of the best books I’ve read all year. I couldn’t put this down and was torn between wanting to race through to finish it and know the end but also not wanting it to finish. Such a gripping story and I was hooked from the first page. I’ll be buying the physical version when it’s realised to sit on my bookshelf! Highly recommend.

Hendrix's new book is a horrifying story about witchcraft, wherin the witchcraft is the least horrifying part. It scarred me for life. 4.5/5 ⭐

"Witchcraft for Wayward Girls" is about pregnant girls. In 1970. In Florida. Right there we have a horrorstory in itself. But Hendrix's talent to bring people and places to life makes everything so much worse.

Neva is fifteen and pregnant. The baby's father - who promised to stand by her - is now of course long gone. To solve this oh-so-embarrassing "problem", Neva's family dumps her at a "home for unwed mothers", where she is stripped of everything - including her own name - and is forced to live under labour camp-like conditions until her baby is due. A baby she is then expected to give up for adoption, before she can go home and pretend like nothing ever happened. One day, Neva is given a book on witchcraft and, understandibly, some of the girls use it in order to solve their problems and escape the tyranny of the Home.

Since "Witchcraft for Wayward Girls" is reality-based fiction, it stirs up A LOT of emotions. I seriously doubt that it's a coincidence that the book will be published in 2025 - considering a certain other horrorstor--- I MEAN PROJECT that might be put into action next year because of one spray-tanned, demented lunatic. With the current political climate being what it is in certain countries, what we read about in Hendrix's book might very well become reality again in the not-so-distant future - and THAT is the most horrifying part of this story.

I loved this book and the people in it. After the first two pages I realised that this was going to get super dark, and I was hooked. It is impossible not to feel these characters' pain and trauma, and at certain points I wasn't sure whether to cry, scream, or throw my eReader into a wall. The witchcraft is also wonderfully dark and feels real, which is very important to me and made it even easier to get immersed in the plot.

The one thing I did find somewhat annoying is that the majority of the book is written from one character's POV, but in a bunch of seemingly random paragraphs we suddenly get an omniscient POV and are made aware of what other characters think or feel or whisper about without the main character's knowledge. It just kind of broke the fictional bubble for me and I wish Hendrix could have solved these parts in another way. That is basically my one complaint.

This book is dark and traumatizing and my tokophobia (fear of childbirth) is now worse than ever, but I will gladly read it again. It's been a while since I was THIS happy to be childfree and sterilized - not to mention grateful that I have been allowed to make those choices for myself.

In "Witchcraft for Wayward Girls", we are reminded why education, protection, health care, and most of all choice is so very important, and it is - in my opinion - a book that everyone (of all genders) should read.

* * *
Huge thank you to Pan Macmillan for making this book available through NetGalley. An even bigger thank you to Grady Hendrix for writing it.
All opinions are my own.