Bookmarked:Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Before we get into content warnings, enjoy this playlist while you read if you decide to pick this novel up for yourself it will be linked below!
I will be, briefly, discussing some heavy topics to please be aware of that before you dive into this review. I won't be describing them in detail but they will be mentioned so check the content warnings before continuing please.
Content Warnings: Teen Pregnancy, Smoking, Religion, Vomiting, Child Abuse, Systemic Oppression of Women, Racism, Mentions of Violence, Gore, Birth, Witchcraft, Loss of Autonomy, Blood, Sexual Assault
Summary
Fifteen-year-old Neva Craven finds herself stripped of her name and identity when she arrives at Wellwood House, the home for unwed mothers where she'll be having her baby. The home is full of girls like her, hidden away to have their babies in secret so that they can be sent to adoptive families and the girls can return to their normal lives. These girls are given fake names and identities and told that the quickest route back to their normal life is just to obey the rules and give up their babies. It feels as if they have no control over anything, that is until Neva (who has been renamed Fern for her Wellwood House stay) finds a book on witchcraft that she shares with her friends Rose, Holly, and Zinnia.
Review
As I mentioned, I'm trying to go into this review as unbiased as possible. However, there are a few key things that I have liked about all of Grady Hendrix's writing and I'm going to get into that before I get into the review for this book specifically. The first thing being, his characters. Mr. Hendrix writes very strong female characters that have a sort of final girl quality to them. They almost feel easily underestimated and brushed off at first glance, and then as you continue to read you see that your view of them has been forced to change. He writes female characters so well that when I first picked up his novel The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires I thought it was written by a woman. To have a male author validate women in their work and portray them so strongly it made me feel like he was writing women for women. That's not something we get very often, especially in the horror genre.
I also love how descriptive he is, while it may be very gross in some instances he took the author's rule of "Show Don't Tell" and ran with it. He's one of the few authors I can accurately say I feel like I'm watching a movie in my head when I read his work because it's that well laid out for you.
This book in particular hits some very heavy topics such as sexual assault. Before I continue with the rest of my statement, I'm just going to say that I'm not the type of person that believes these heavy topics are ones that should be shied away from. Especially given current events we need to draw attention to these topics, create space for them to be discussed respectfully, and showcase more diverse types of responses that victims could have so that people know how to look for and identify them. Despite the horror of the material, I like how the situation is handled in this novel. I find that these topics are not often handled gently by creators, and so to see it presented so raw and not undermined by a joke or just completely looked over was really important. I could not think of a better way that this situation could have been depicted and handled especially because it is presented like the horrific thing that it is.
On the lighter side of things, I was absolutely living for the way the girls bonded. Girlhood is something that a lot of women connect over, and its always depicted in such a cheesy way in most media, but this felt really genuine and they were having actual meaningful discussions. They learned from each other, they supported one another, and that really stood out to me because I have sisters and girl best friends and that's literally what its all about, even if you aren't starting a coven.
On the topic of sisterhood, there is a lot about this book that really makes you think a minute. These girls have pretty much lost all of their autonomy, and as a woman who grew up in an extremely oppressive religion myself it just made my blood boil. Eliciting these very real and raw reactions from readers is exactly what I look for, and I think it will really bring a lot of female readers closer together, especially if you have a book club like I do. We got a chance to really bond in a raw way, even those of us who weren't mothers or even adoptees, and that's something about this book that I think is really special.
Closing
If you haven't read this book already PLEASE do yourself a favor and add it to your reading list. I will have it link here. You may cry, you may find yourself filled with the anger of hundreds upon thousands of women before you and around you, but most importantly you may find that you have a lot more in common with other women than you might think, even if it doesn't look that way on the outside. If you want to see more from me feel free to click the link below where you can find my other socials. Y'all take care, and thanks for stopping by!
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