There's nothing quite like a childhood friend. They've seen you puke weird blue stuff while getting off the school bus, they've watched you go through that weird religious phase you went through when you were ten and spent the summer with a very Catholic grandma (spoiler alert: the religious mania didn't hit me when I was 10. We all know that if I step inside a church I will immediately burst into flames). And if you're fortunate enough to keep your childhood friend through your teens, they even help exorcise a demon from your body.

Because that's what best friends do.

In My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, Abby and Gretchen meet when they're in the fifth grade and they become inseparable. When they get to high school it seems like nothing can stop the duo from graduating high school and getting out of town to do bigger and better things. But something happens to Gretchen one night when a group of girls goes exploring.

Gretchen goes into a dilapidated house in the woods and disappears for hours. The person who returns is not Gretchen and Abby seems to be the only one who realizes it. Gone is her perky sweet friend and in her place is a cruel girl, a faded ghost who seems to get pleasure from cruel jokes that have life altering outcomes. Not only will no one believe Abby, but since she comes from a poor(ish) family, teachers and parents decide that she's pulling pranks to get attention.

Gretchen's family forbids her from being friends with Abby. Whatever the demon is inside Gretchen, it shows itself to Abby and tells her there's nothing she can do to stop her. The demon's objective is to use up Gretchen's body until there's nothing left and to wreck so much havoc that it can bathe in the river of horror and sorrow it leaves behind.

What's a girl who wants to save her best friend's life to do?

Abby recruits the help of a religious zealot body builder who has watched his preacher father do many exorcisms and believes he can exorcise the demon from Gretchen's body and save her soul. What follows is a sort of a dark night of the soul for both Abby and Gretchen. Will Abby lose her best friend to the demon or will the power of friendship save Gretchen?

True to form, Grady Hendrix has written a hilariously moving novel about what good human beings are capable of and the lengths friends will go to to save one another's souls. If you like your horror novels to be on the comical (and yet still terrifying) side, pick up this book right now or I swear to God I will cross the threshold of a Catholic church and become engulfed in flames. Or, you know, I'll read another Grady Hendrix book. Depends on my mood.