Grady Hendrix delivers a new and fantastic story of witchcraft, empowerment and the need for control in a timely story with Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. Hendrix crafts a story of girls with zero control of their lives beautifully and doesn’t holdback on the pain unwed mothers felt or the issues they faced in the 70s. Overall Hendrix continues his streak of fantastic books with WfWG!

It’s hard to know what to say about this book. I feel like my words have weight. The subject-matter is heavy and timely and targeted.

It’s about mothers who didn’t want to be mothers.

It’s about mothers who weren’t allowed to be mothers.

It’s about girls who were abandoned by everyone they knew and chose witchcraft as an attempt to escape. Which is exactly what modern witchcraft seems to be about: women making choices for themselves when God has failed them.

I would not recommend this book for teens; I’m worried they might try to hurt themselves in the name of witchcraft or misunderstand what happens in a hospital when you give birth (they don’t shave you anymore, and episiotomies are rare). That said, as a mother who gave birth naturally, I support women having a doula or other support person present to make sure your preferences are taken into account when feasible and your body is respected. I didn’t need this and was very go-with-the-flow, but I had a good OB.

In a post-Roe world, this book is poignant and sad. Our choices have been stripped away from us. Homes like this may appear, once again. Women like me may decide they’re done having children, for safety. Giving birth, even when everything goes perfectly, is life-altering to your body and mind.

4.25 stars because the story, while poignant and compelling at the end, drags a bit in the middle. It took me a long time to read it.

This is my favorite Grady Hendrix so far. The characters are all really well developed and realistic. The horror is different-- there is body horror and scary situations, but the situations that cause the "horror" are realistic-- disempowerment, loss of autonomy, and bad people.

The Grady Hendrix books that I have read before have had a great blending of supernatural horror and humor, so I was expecting that humor with a focus on witchcraft. Instead, this book is an intense combination of real-life horrors mixed with witchcraft in an atmospheric, realistic fiction setting. It starts off slowly, introducing a number of unmarried teenage, pregnant girls who have been sent away to a home in Florida in 1970 where they wait to deliver their babies and give them up for adoption. The story builds as the core group of characters are given a book on witchcraft which they use to make their doctor feel their pain and nausea of morning sickness. Events get progressively disturbing and graphic; there is a strong sense of place; and the rage that these unseen girls feel is explosive. Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for letting me read the advance copy of this book!

Grady Hendrix does not ever want the reader to be comfortable. No matter the subject, something is always just slightly off from the beginning. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is no different. Fern arrives at Wellwood House at fifteen and pregnant. Everything is stripped from her, including her name. She meets Rose, Holly, and Zinnia, also "wayward" pregnant teens. Every aspect of their lives in controlled, what they eat, who they talk to, whether they can keep their babies or not. When Fern meets the librarian and gets a book on witchcraft, the girls finally feel they have some bit of power. But power always comes at a price.


This book offers a scathing look at how unwed teen mothers were treated in the 1970s, the horrors of the homes that existed, and the essential powerlessness of women. It also offers hope through friendship and self acceptance.

Wellwood Home is full of pregnant teens just trying to make it through the endless chores, moralistic lectures, and sweltering Florida heat until they can give their babies up for adoption and go back to their real lives. The cruelty they endure is casual, deliberate, endemic, and vicious. When Fern picks up a book on witchcraft from the bookmobile, she and her friends try a spell out of boredom and desperation. Their little cantrip works, but real power will require great sacrifice. The traditional horror elements are less stomach-turning than the misogyny.

Unlike anything Hendrix has written before...

I was anxious how Hendrix would handle writing the narrative of a 15 year old girl and moreso with such a sensitive topic, but I thought he handled it with great care and respect.

This isn't horror in the typical sense--it is more realistic horror; it's a look into the true horrors experienced by real girls (yes...girls) who were subjected to these "homes", "caretakers" and "doctors". Places of the past but realllyyy not that far in the past.

Reading this was simultaneously intense, rage-inducing, and heartbreaking...and there is A LOT of heart in this book. He created characters that felt genuine, characters I cared for and wanted to see justice for.

The witch element certainly plays a role but it always seemed to take a backseat to the rest of the story; it didn't bother me but it's worth noting.

Grady has range!

Neva is a 15-yr-old teen, pregnant by her boyfriend who has deserted her and placed into a home for "wayward girls" in Florida in the early 1970's. All the girls in the home have been sent there against their will, given new floral names for the length of their stays, and told that they will be giving up their children whether they like it or not. When Neva (Fern) is given a book on witchcraft by the traveling librarian some of the girls start to feel like they can possibly take their power back. The problem with witchcraft is that it always has a price to be paid.... I loved this book and reading it on Election Day 2024 just made me wish is weren't fiction.

Thanks to Berkley and Grady Hendrix for the chance to read ‘Witchcraft for Wayward Girls’! Grady Hendrix is an auto-read for me. It was really emotional and gripping (once you got into it-the first parts dragged a tiny bit) but I did feel like this one was missing that sparkle that I’ve come to expect from his books. Maybe it was bad timing to read something on this topic (election week). Either way, I did stay hooked to the end.

Really enjoyed this book. It was a slight change from his past books. It had great character development and I enjoyed the perspective of the main character.

I was so excited to start October (my month of reading only horror books) with a new one from Grady Hendrix. I love his books! Each is different than the last, but they all have his signature style and wit.
I like the premise of this story a lot! Young, unwed mothers taking up witchcraft! A librarian who was once a groovy witch! All of this peaked my interest! I also really liked the characters of Fern and Rose. I was absolutely gutted when I learned Holly's backstory, and it is probably part of why I didn't end up finishing this book. I was also having trouble with some of the really graphic labor scenes.
It was not as spooky as I had expected, though it is also possible I didn't get to the part of the book with supernatural elements. The only horror was how these girls were being treated by society, and it turned out to be to horrific for me to keep reading.
I will be really interested to see what other fans think.

A handful of girls find themselves "in trouble" as unmarried women in the South in 1970. Their families have sent them to Wellwood House in Florida to wait out the birth of their babies before coming home. At Wellwood House, their every move is controlled by the adults around them. When the meet the librarian who travels to the home in a bookmobile, she gives one of the girls a book about the occult and slowly, they start taking their power back from those who have stripped them of it.
While I understand and sympathize with the message, it took me a long time to get into this, which is unusual for a Grady Hendrix book in my opinion. There was quite a lot of information and research done about these homes for "troubled girls", and while I appreciated the research, I wanted more occult and witchcraft because that's what I was expecting. While it was not a favorite of mine, I still encourage everyone to read Grady Hendrix. Even in a slower book, the writing was very atmospheric.

Despite its relatively slow pace, I found the first third of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls to be quite engaging. I was definitely turning (swiping) pages late into the night as I delved into Fern's story. However, it seemed to take forever for any elements of magic or witchcraft to be introduced and even then, the stakes seemed incredibly low. As the reader, I felt a bit like I was stuck in a cycle: the girls argue about using magic, they decide not to do it, one of them changes their minds, they still don't do it, etc. It was like being in a car with the wheels turning but not moving forward at all. Then there were multiple extremely detailed and graphic depictions of childbirth which was gratuitous to me. Overall, this was a disappointment.

Review to come in Scream Horror Mag


One of Hendrix's finest novels to date, blew me away, can't wait for everyone to read this!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix is yet another in the list of titles by the author that blend horror, wit, and deeply detailed settings. Set in a home for unwed pregnant teenagers in 1970s Florida, the girls have to content with the powerlessness of their situation until a mysterious book presents them with a solution to all of their problems; witchcraft.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: pregnancy complications, birth trauma, adoption trauma, mentions of child sexual abuse, mentions of racism, gore.

As always, Grady Hendrix writes immensely readable works. The details are vivid and the descriptions of characters and the frequent moments of gore are intense. The book’s moments are so cinematic and reading these books you really feel like they’d adapt so easily to the screen. I think, especially in this case, they read a lot like American Horror Story seasons.

The issue that plagues Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is that it has all the subtly of a sledgehammer. All of the “adults” are mustache-twirling levels of evil. The other girls than the main ones are vapid. The motivations are deeply one-note and the themes are repeated without a shred of nuance. It’s not that Hendrix isn’t making some good points about agency, especially in groups of young women treated with disdain. It’s that there is nothing unexpected, nothing thematically interesting. I think that in all honesty, a few more scenes that moved the plot along and a little less time spent making points about motherhood would have done well to strengthen the narrative.

As beautiful as Hendrix’s descriptions can be, they can drag. This is especially evident in the descriptions of labor and the pregnant bodies of the girls. Sure, it underlines the body horror of giving birth. But at a certain point it just goes beyond
deeply evocative imagery and enters into somewhat indulgent editing.

The bottom line is that for fans of Grady Hendrix, this will be no disappointment. It’s funny, gross, and rich in imagery. It reads like a movie. But it does suffer from bloated descriptions and heavy-handed messaging. 3/5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC of this book. I've heard so much about Grady Hendrix's novels but never read one before. So I was really excited, and a little nervous, to read Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. I'm not a huge horror reader, but I do enjoy some creepy stuff. I'd heard Hendrix's style was humorous horror so I'm not sure if this book is similar to the others or not. There was definitely humor, but also darkness.

A young woman is taken to a home for pregnant teens in Florida where her name is changed and her rights are trampled on in the name of 'doing what's right' for the young woman and her soon-to-be-born child. The idea that any young woman who has found herself pregnant is clearly "wayward" and shameful is one that I personally grew up with, having grown up in the 1970's in a Christian family. Of course now, I realize how repugnant it is to assume there is something wrong with the girl as well as impose the idea that the child is better off being sent away and never discussed again.

In fact, I think the part of this book that struck me as the most horrifying was the pre-Roe America it depicts. A timely conversation, certainly, but also an awareness of what many women have and are still dealing with in their lives. I enjoyed the witchy parts as well. They have a wonderful creepiness, and give the girls some hope of regaining their power, even if it isn't necessarily a good choice.

Thoughtful, creepy, funny, well written, enlightening, and dark, this is a fantastic read for the dark months of the tumultuous time we are in.

2.5 rounded up. I adore Grady Hendrix and I was pumped for his latest book, so I'm bummed to say this was mostly a miss for me. The pacing is painfully slow and meandering, and there are SO many characters introduced that genuinely don't up mattering. Apart from a few really knockout scenes, basically nothing happens, and the stakes were never high enough between the big moments to keep my attention. Grady still writes horror and chaos masterfully, so there is certain imagery that will stick with me, but there was such a lack of tension in between that it really took the wind out of the sails of the narrative. Fern/Neva is unfortunately kind of a nothing protagonist and I struggled to really empathize with her until the ending and subsequent epilogue.

The story takes place in the 70s at a home for wayward girls, where unwed mothers are sent to give birth in secret. The girls spend their time in a very controlled environment completing chores, watching tv, and smoking cigarettes. They're expected to toe the line, give up their babies, and go back home to forget any of this ever happened. Things start to shake up when a bookmobile rolls up to the home and a "librarian" gives Fern a book on witchcraft. The book provides the girls with the opportunity to have some semblance of power in a place where everyone is always telling them what's best for them. But is the librarian promising the girls freedom or is she another adult trying to use the situation for her own advantage?

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls was a descriptive slow burn that explores the themes of friendship, female autonomy, control, and surrender. It took some time to get to the magic, but the scenes imbued with it are a whole lot of fun. Also, a librarian as the keeper of knowledge and books being literally magic. Very cool.

When the librarian showed up, I thought maybe we'd escaped the magical negro trope, but it still managed to creep in there.

Perfect for fans of: Other Grady Hendrix books, 1970s vibes, historical fiction tinged with magic

Thank you to Grady Hendrix, Penguin Random House LLC, and Netgalley for my eARC.

This was my first Grady Hendrix and I'm still. on the fence on how I felt about it? I thought the premise was interesting and was the perfect read for spooky season, however, I wasn't as enthralled as I wish I had been. I also think I was expecting something a bit scarier honestly. The book is categorized as a horror but I would call it a thriller at best. Overall, it wasn't bad, just not what I had been hoping for and I was a bit disappointed.

Overall, I really enjoyed the vibe. This felt like a return back to Southern Book Club/My Best Friend's Exorcism Hendrix. I do feel that the pacing was off and at times the use of witchcraft seemed like an afterthought. The perspective shifting to a supporting character is jarring when done despite it being necessary to give all details.