Book Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

I’m in awe of the book. I don’t know how to do justice to it without giving out too much. Reading the book is an experience like no other I have had in a long time. I was annoyed, angry, disgusted, astonished, excited, tearful as I read the book. It’s about daughters, girls, children who have gotten themselves pregnant and are sent to the home for loose girls to be out of sight, to deliver their babies to be sold on. They have to work for their room and board, and no one in the house treats them kindly. It’s a Christian house after all.

The book is set in the 70s, and it is riddled with historical references, touching on racial issues as well. It follows Fern, Nev, who becomes pregnant with her boyfriend’s child. She is forced to grow up and see the world from a different perspective, where her body, mind, and freedoms are not hers, where babies are transactional and women are dangerous, and no one cares about her and what she wants. She is forced to resort to witchcraft to save her friend, one of the younger children, who has been molested. But witchcraft comes with a cost, as does everything else in the book; there is no fairytale magic, there is harsh, ruthless, bloody, disgusting magic that is nauseating, strong, and costly. The book uses vivid imagery to describe the spells, and it is not for the faint-hearted.

This is not a kind book, this is not a pretty book, this is a highly disturbing book, which shows the cost women had/have to bear in a world that has double standards. Men rarely have to pay the same price.

My head is still swirling after reading the book. I’m not sure what to think or what to say. All I know is that this was a fantastic book that still entraps me. I don’t want to be there, because it is a sad place despite the bittersweet ending.