A review by littlefemur
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

2.25

This book could have been amazing if it hadn’t resorted to cheap tricks like taking on the problematic language of the 80s. How unimaginative do you have to be to take us back into the past by using fucked up language? It was so hard to enjoy the story because fairly often I was jolted out of it by poor choices from a white man writing in 2016. 

 Here’s a sampling:
AIDS jokes
Weird gross sexualizing of a Black woman and making her a joke
Jokes about brain damage 
Using the r word
A retro version of “no homo”: dearly but not queerly
Queer as slur
“Spazzing” out and “spaz” - this one was everywhere 
AIDS jokes
Blackface
Sitting Indian style
Slave day
Casual fatphobia
“You look like an Ethiopian” to someone who’d lost a bunch of weight. 
 
So edgy. Wait no, I meant unimaginative and disappointing. 


Expand filter menu Content Warnings