[HDNA #02] - My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

[shiki-jitsu]

Stranger Things is the Buckethead of shows.

I said. it. Deal. With. It.

[Alien Redrum]

I'm okay with your opinion and the six others who feel the same way. There's not enough of you to stop it from having another season.

Almost finished with Chapter 9. So. Much. To. Say.

[shiki-jitsu]

Yeah. I am in the middle of 11

I am reading this much quicker than I anticipated. We suck at book clubs.

I think i am going to write my 3 chapter bits and hold em until Neon catches up some.

[shiki-jitsu]

Oh yeah, and I will still watch Season 3. I enjoy the show enough, its just a bit of a nuisance at times.

[Neon Maniac]

Blah blah blah - through Sunday Bloody Sunday

So, while I'm liking the style and characters of this book, I want to strangle the author for the nostalgia. It's a weak ass crutch that sucks a certain type of hooplehead in, like titties in an 80's teen rauch movie, or cheap beer on a Wednesday night. I hate that pandering shit. If anyone looks up from a trapper keeper again, I'm losing it. And yeah, there's a big difference between looking up from you trapper keeper and iphone. iPhone is a brand of phone, we all have phones. BFD. Trapper Keepers, well, unless you were there you just don't get it. Trapper Keepers weren't a brand of notebook. They were a motherfucking system of everything that had your fucking favorite thing on the cover. They were expensive, and they were cool. He could've said notebook, or even peechee, but chose Trapper Keeper. He did it on purpose.

The 'lake' isn't a lake. Lakes don't have tides. Margaret very much made a big deal about the tide being out. While I've already learned more about the south from this book than I ever cared to know, I believe the area is on the coast, and I believe Margaret lives on an island within a bay, surrounded by channels or inlets of said bay. So the tide would go out. When Abby & Gretchen are driving away, Wadmalaw is where Margaret lives. I googled it, it's an island. I grew up on the Puget Sound, very much living the life of boats, beer and trapper keepers, so when he was describing the day on the boat it all made sense to me, as far as where they were and what they were doing. Small, lazy coves and inlets like that are easy to find, and when they were anchored it may have been up a river that feeds into the bay, or possibly makes up one side of the island. Not Margaret's side though, because rivers don't have tides either. Although Gretchen being swept away by a river current makes way more sense than anything he wrote about that part.

As far as that scene went, I'm with you all. Not really sure what happened to Gretchen. Made no sense to me. She jumped, went in muddy shallow water, and then somehow wound up down the way and in some kind of blockhouse in the woods? Sorry, but none of that made sense to me. She wouldn't have been swept away by water, she would've wandered away, and they were all seconds behind her. So, who knows? Either poor writing or very purposely cryptic. I'll leave it up in the air for now and not judge.

Overall, I am enjoying it so far. I'm trying to read more as time allows, but that's not always possible. The summer of 1988 is when I graduated from high school, FWIW.

[Neon Maniac]

Just for fun, here's a map of the are. That can be useful when an author starts dropping names like we care or know.



And yeah, looks like Wadmalaw is very much an island up an inlet of the bay.

[Neon Maniac]

I really liked these first 6 chapters. They did a good job of setting up background and dynamics of the 4 girls. We learn how Abby & Gretchen met and became friends, and then we find out that the dreaded Margaret and her stupid horses is also their BFF, along with Glee, the girl they dug through trash for. I think there's more to their story and I hope it gets explored. I can understand Glee, but something had to have happened with Margaret and her stupid horses for them all to be close BFFs now.

[Neon Maniac]

And I'm read up through Parents Just Don't Understand, which I believe ends the next set of 3 chapters.

[Alien Redrum]

First, nice detecting on the map!

I really liked these first 6 chapters. They did a good job of setting up background and dynamics of the 4 girls. We learn how Abby & Gretchen met and became friends, and then we find out that the dreaded Margaret and her stupid horses is also their BFF, along with Glee, the girl they dug through trash for. I think there's more to their story and I hope it gets explored. I can understand Glee, but something had to have happened with Margaret and her stupid horses for them all to be close BFFs now.

Yeah, I'm very curious on how Margaret got in the picture, especially since Abby is obviously poor and Margaret (so far) doesn't seem like the type to hang out with poor people. So there is some story here.

Also, IIRC, wasn't Glee brought up VERY early on (like in the first few pages of the book) with something really bad happening to her?

She wouldn't have been swept away by water, she would've wandered away, and they were all seconds behind her. So, who knows? Either poor writing or very purposely cryptic. I'll leave it up in the air for now and not judge.

My thought too. She was there and then she was in the creepy house. The fuck.

[Neon Maniac]

Also, IIRC, wasn't Glee brought up VERY early on (like in the first few pages of the book) with something really bad happening to her?

Glee was introduced in the year by year montage of Gretchen and Abby's friendship. She threw away a retainer and they went through trash trying to find it.

[Alien Redrum]

No, I know that, but I swear she was mentioned real early on. I'll have to look.

[Alien Redrum]

Yup, second page:

Abby still remembers high school, but she remembers it as images, not events. She remembers effects, but she's gotten fuzzy on the causes. Now it's all coming back in an unstoppable flood. The sound of screaming on the Lawn. The owls. The stench in Margaret's room. Good Dog Max. The terrible thing that happened to Glee. But most of all she remembers what happened to Gretchen and how everything got so fucked up back in 1988, the year her best friend was possessed by the devil.

[Neon Maniac]

Great memory! What happens to Glee? I want to find out.

[Neon Maniac]

So far this book would make a good season of Riverdale.

[shiki-jitsu]

So far this book would make a good season of Riverdale.

This is so fucking true. I’m going to imagine them all as Riverdale characters now.