I was browsing the shelves of New Fiction in my local Barnes and Noble store when I stumbled upon this interesting cover. I mean...it's like a yearbook...who doesn't love yearbooks?! And then I read the title...I mean hellooooo...everything about this book says READ ME...so I did! I seriously flew through this book. Once I sat down and really started reading it, I was drawn in. The first few pages were a little dreary because it was background on the two main characters, Abby and Gretchen. They met when they were children and Abby had a birthday party at the local skating rink. She invited all of the kids in the classroom, including new transfer student Gretchen, but then Margaret Middleton with her rich ass self invited the whole class to her horse farm...on the same day as Abby's birthday party. Bitch. Gretchen was the only one who showed up to Abby's party and though rough for the first hour (because Gretchen's mother made her give Abby a children's Bible as a present), the girls eventually came around to one another and have been best friends ever since.
Cut to 10ish years later and the girls are roughly 16. They're popular, they're inseparable, and they're weirdly good friends with Margaret...yes the same rich bitch who ruined Abby's birthday party. Isn't it funny how time changes people and situations?! Completing their clique is Glee, a genius girl who you wouldn't think would fit in with them but somehow she just rounds out the group.
One night, the four girls are at Margaret's lake cabin when they drop acid but hours later still don't feel anything...so to excite the night they decide to go skinny dipping. Gretchen takes off running for the pier, stripping as she goes, when they yell at her not to jump because the tide is out but Gretchen goes off into the water anyway. It's pitch black dark out and they can't see her. They start yelling her name and Glee thinks she sees her a ways down the bank walking into the woods. Abby goes and grabs Gretchen's clothes and goes into the woods to find her. She emerges where they saw Gretchen go into the woods and she begins trying to track where Gretchen would have gone. She arrives at a little clearing with an old run down shack with graffiti all over it and she swears she sees something black standing inside of it. While she's staring at the figure in the window, she hears a man's voice say "Abby" and she takes off running back toward the direction of the house, sure that someone will reach out and grab her at any moment. She gets back to the cabin, but there's still no sign of Gretchen. She grabs a flashlight and after psyching herself up, she returns to the woods to look for Gretchen. It won't be long before dawn is here so she feels a little more comfortable with going into the woods. She finds Gretchen walking toward the house, naked except for her shoes, dirty, freezing, and when Gretchen sees her she breaks down crying. They get back to the lake house and leave but something isn't right with Gretchen. She's spaced out and can't seem to figure out exactly what she's doing.
Within the next few weeks, Gretchen isn't herself. She looks a mess, she keeps wearing the same clothes, she smells bad, her breath is rotten. Abby knows something happened in the woods but Gretchen won't tell her what. Through a series of events, and Gretchen's admissions of some of the things currently happening to her, Abby surmises that Gretchen was raped in the woods and she keeps having flashbacks, reliving the night and she's hurting herself as a coping mechanism. I'm sure at this point you know she's been possessed. Abby goes back to the shack in the woods and sees the name of a band spray painted on the building. The same band that Margaret's boyfriend, Wallace, was recently in. And Wallace has had some beef with Gretchen now that she's all possessed and junk. Abby believes now that Wallace has raped Gretchen. When she tries to talk to Glee about, she does the typical mean girl three way call routine and has Margaret on the line. Of course Margaret flips her shit and tells Abby to fuck off and never come around them again. Wouldn't you know it though, the next day Gretchen shows up to school practically glowing. She's got on new clothes, her hair is polished and shiny, and her make up is done impeccably well. It's as if nothing ever happened and she's had some sort of post puberty makeover. This new and improved possessed Gretchen begins fucking around with people. She starts flirting with Wallace, she gives love letters to Glee who thinks they're from a teacher she has a crush on, and she gives Margaret these shakes that are supposed to help her lose weight. She also further pushes Abby away with her nonsense.
During all of this angst and turmoil, an assembly is had at school...they go to a Christian academy so every month they have some sort of assembly about God. This month it's the Lemon Brothers Fitness show...they're body builders who lift logs and stuff and spread the message of God. I've seen something similar to this at my old church and it's actually quite fascinating. One of the brothers, Christian, happens to be talking about demons that affect us...sloth, greed, pride, etc. But he happens to point to Gretchen and tells her he sees the demon that is weighing her down. Abby is immediately intrigued and goes to find him after the assembly. He tells her yes he has the power of discernment and can tell she is possessed. Abby takes a pamphlet with their information but they have to leave before she can really talk to him about it.
A few more weeks pass and things continue to get worse for the people around Gretchen. Abby finally makes up her mind to talk to Christian again after attempts to speak with any other adult fail. She's not just trying to save Gretchen's life at this point but her own as well. Gretchen is doing everything she can to get Abby kicked out of school and ruin her life...or at least ruin it in terms of how a 16 year old would feel her life has been ruined. Abby meets up with Christian at the food court and they decide that based upon the evidence, Gretchen is indeed possessed. Christian tells her when she's ready to do something about it, let him know.
Abby finally decides something needs to be done before Gretchen kills someone, because of some shit that pops off with Glee and Margaret, and she calls Christian. They devise a plan to drug Gretchen, take her somewhere, and perform an exorcism. Well things don't go so smoothly...of course not...they never do. But eventually they get her somewhere and begin performing the exorcism. Well Christian isn't a priest...while he may be a man of God who has seen deliverance services before...he's not an exorcist. The struggle is real. It's a cluster fuck of an exorcism and eventually he flees with his tail between his legs, leaving Abby alone with a possessed Gretchen.
So...is Abby able to exorcise the demon? Does Gretchen die during the process? Do they get their happily ever after? Do they remain besties? What happened with Glee and Margaret? Well...I'm not gonna tell you. You'll just have to read the book and find out for yourself. If you like 80's music, demonic possession, teen angst, and Charleston, South Carolina, you'll like this book. It's a quick read and it's actually really quite good. I enjoyed it but again, I'm weird and my literature choices are as varying as my musical choices.
Happy Reading!
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