Witchcraft for Wayward Girls in Strange and Unusual Book Club

Feb 15, 2025 Hayley (Strange & Unusual Book Club) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, signed-copies, 2025-new-releases, audiobooks, strange-and-unusual-book-club

Grady Hendrix is extraordinary! I'm amazed by how well he continues to write women.

The novel is set during the 70s at a home for unwed pregnant teenagers. It's heavy subject matter and Hendrix delves into sexual abuse of children, racial segregation, and graphic descriptions of childbirth. These unwed mothers are treated like criminals and have all their rights taken from them. These are timely issues, particularly considering the Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The abusiv ...more

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Feb 07, 2025 Tabitha rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-as-audiobook, horror

I'm swimming with emotions on finishing this book. My eyes teared up at some parts, other times I was shaking with anger. The satisfaction Hendrix usually gives us at the end of his novels was also tempered in this, I think, with this book being his least horror-like, the least satirical, and maybe the most real and angry of all of his books.

Hendrix often writes of hypocrisy of religion and authority figures, especially with how they interact with and affect minorities and children. Witchcraft I'm swimming with emotions on finishing this book. My eyes teared up at some parts, other times I was shaking with anger. The satisfaction Hendrix usually gives us at the end of his novels was also tempered in this, I think, with this book being his least horror-like, the least satirical, and maybe the most real and angry of all of his books.

Hendrix often writes of hypocrisy of religion and authority figures, especially with how they interact with and affect minorities and children. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a historical fiction novel set in the summer of 1970 at a home for pregnant teenagers. They range in age from 12 to 17, with a variety of stories, most of which are unsurprisingly terrible. It can be a hard read and a really hard listen (I mostly listened to the audiobook, but read along at parts, hoping that'd help me with the content). Hendrix roils you with the injustice these girls face, and every trial and tribulation they go through and come out the other side has you rooting for them and crying when things don't go as planned. I even felt physically ill at times, especially when we learned Holly's story.

One of the things I like best about Grady Hendrix books, though, are the endings. Usually, we get a big to-do with retribution for the bad guys and a satisfyingly clean(ish) tie-up for the end. The resolution in this one felt more like it puttered out... but in a realistic way? I don't hate it because it does feel so real. I wonder how much research Hendrix put into this book, because I think he handled the content and characters really well, but then Hendrix is one of those male authors I think usually succeeds in writing women and their perspectives.

This was tonally and thematically very similar to another book I loved last year - Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom. Both are historical fiction novels with a (non-primary) fantasy-horror bend that deals with women encountering witchcraft in order to improve their lives and take down those who harm them. But Slewfoot gave us a much more satisfying ending, imo lol Both books are excellent, though, and deal with different perspectives from different points in time. Altogether, they paint a grim picture of women's rights, and it's genuinely upsetting to see us backsliding to these backwards times in 2025. Which only makes books like this harder to read, I think, but all the more important.

I recommend Grady Hendrix in general. Even if this won't be one of my top favorite reads this year, it's definitely a generally favorite and absolutely unforgettable book of mine now. ...more

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Jul 26, 2025 Mairead rated it really liked it

Shelves: listen-and-read, asap-standalone

This story started out soooo strong - I loved these girls, I felt their fear and their pain, the darkness and the reality and the magic really drew me in but I lost it somewhere after the half way mark… but the endings for the girls, and because Grady Hendrix, still worthy of 4 stars (:

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