ARC Review:

I listened to this on audiobook, and I highly recommend consuming the book this way. It is written in a tell-all interview style, and with each character having a unique voice, makes it feel like you're sitting down to hear the story from your close friends. This book starts out rehashing the pop-punk scene of the early 2000s, and how a band, got their start. From the getgo, this book has the reader entertained. The story moves quickly, but with enough time to give decent detail, and the ending of the book wraps up the story in the far past, not so far past, and present. As someone who throughly enjoyed Daisy Jones & The Six, and was itching for more fictional band drama, this book managed to not only scratch that itch, but make me want to hear even more about what this band accomplished.

I went into this audiobook not knowing what to expect I just really loved the title.
The story was slow and took forever to be told, it has multiple timelines and multi Pov throughout the book. The narrators made it clear when the pov switch so it wasn't hard to distinguish between the characters. And the voices fit the characters well.
It just wasn't for me.

Thank you Netgalley, Hachette Audio | Run For It and Craig DiLouie for the audio Arc of The Ex, the Anticrist.
Narrated by Lisa Flanagan; Jesse Vilinsky; Alexander Cendese; Pete Simonelli

Mixing the Anticrist with heavy metal music? What could possibly go wrong!
I have rad a few of Craig DiLouie's books in the past and really like his style of writing. This book is no exception. We have our MFC, Lily, a famous band leader of The Shivers and she's agreed to have an interview regarding a riot that happened a decade earlier at a Battle of The Bands night. Did it really happen? Was her ex the anticrist?

This narrative is told on 4 timelines and from a. multi POV in some places throughout the book but mainly from Lily's. I'm so glad that the timelines and POVs are well marked out within the chapters because I think I would've got really confused! It's all relevant and all builds to that fateful night. I loved the variety of characters that Lily and her band come across in their journey of being a heavy metal band and the dynamics between the band themselves, I have read a few books that have linked Heavy Metal music with the horror elements and this book has a great balance. It's not too gory, or too campy and I soon worked my way through the audiobook. I didn't want it to end either.

Narrated by Lisa Flanagan; Jesse Vilinsky; Alexander Cendese; Pete Simonelli, these guys did a wonderful job in keeping the main and the side characters with their own voices/ character traits and it was easier to keep up with the timelines.

A solid 4 stars

If Daisy Jones & The Six and Good Omens had a chaotic lovechild, it would be this book. Told in a documentary-style format, this tale dives into the wild past of a '90s punk band called The Shivers—and the lead singer, Lily, who just might be responsible for killing the literal Antichrist.

The story bounces between timelines: the band’s early days in 1998, Lily’s shocking confession in 2010, and a present-day interview that finally brings the truth to light. At first, it’s all sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But then comes the apocalypse.

This read felt like watching an episode of "E! True Hollywood Story" mixed with religious horror and emotional fallout. The first 300 pages are all about building the band, the relationships, and the rising tension. The last part explores what happens after the world falls apart—emotionally and maybe even spiritually.

The pace was slow for me, and I probably would have DNF’d it if I hadn’t picked up the audiobook. Luckily, the full cast of narrators kept things moving and brought each band member to life.

Raised Catholic, I did relate to some of the bigger questions the story raised—about belief, purpose, sacrifice, and what we owe each other. Even though this book didn’t totally land for me, I get why character-driven readers would love it. It’s not your average horror book. It’s about fame, love, and the end of everything. So if you liked Daisy Jones but wished it came with a biblical twist, this one might surprise you.

This has too much music and not enough horror/ antichrist stuff for me. Also I felt like I didn’t really know the characters all that well so the story just fell flat imo. Reminiscent of Grady Hendrix we sold our souls but I liked that one more. I think I gave it 3 stars. Maybe books about bands and satan aren’t for me ? Who knew.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I liked the full cast narration, I liked most the characters, and I enjoyed the first 70% of the audiobook. But for a book that is listed as horror, there was very little horror until 70% into it and that is when the book started to lose interest for me. It is written like an interview with the different members of a band and has really good narrators. But the story isn't scary or suspenseful and loses steam leading to a cheesy feeling face off with the antichrist. Just feel very flat for me.

Music has power.

Reminiscent of a VH1 Behind the Music, the book includes interviews from band members, reviewers, and managers. The audiobook takes a moment to get going and at times, I couldn't tell the differences in some of the voices to indicate which character was talking. The real meat of the story doesn't start until about 45%.

One complaint is that I never want to hear the word swagger again.

I enjoyed the book because it was fun and ridiculous in it's own way. Reminds me of a more modern take on The Devil Went Down to Georgia. The title and cover are perfect for the book. I think horrors fans will enjoy reading it.

Book recs: Schrader's Chord, We Sold Our Souls, Rosemary's Baby.

Thank you to NetGalley, Craig DiLouie, and Hachette Audio for the opportunity to listen to My Ex, the Antichrist. I have written this review voluntarily and honestly.

📚TLDR: I went into this not really knowing what to expect and ended up having so much fun! It feels like Daisy Jones & the Six had a member of the band who was possibly the antichrist and possibly hypnotizing people with their music. If you want a dark, fun time, this is it.
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WHAT I LIKED
🎧First off, the audiobook is 100% the way to go. It is told documentary style and has a full cast, so I think the audio really added to the experience.
🎸So campy and funny.
👺 The rock and roll of it all
🔥It was VERY light horror. I honestly thought it could have gone a lot further, but I also kind of liked that stayed pretty light on the horror because I think a lot of people could still enjoy it.
📚 I liked following all of the different characters and getting difference perspectives on what was actually going on.
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WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
🔥 For whatever reason I did like the first half of the book where the band is forming and things are just starting to go wrong better than the second. I do think it could've gone a little further in terms of horror, too. With that being said, I still had a great time listening to it!

There were points throughout this book when I stopped, thought about this story, about how the antichrist is a rockstar, how religious zealots are trying to kill him, and he's breaking the heart of his girlfriend, the rhythm guitarist. It's darkly humorous. absurd, and incredibly entertaining.

Imagine the backstory of a band before fame and fortune, their small victories leading them on a path to greatness. Take away the grittiness because one of the band members is wealthy and foots the bill for everything. Then take away the heartbreak of being rejected 100 times. There's some drugs, some rock 'n' roll, a lot about the various instruments, and full-on bedlam whenever they perform. Even the bacchanalia was funny. It's an absurdist's dream!

I *flew* through this book without any awareness of the passage of real time. It was such a fun ride!

I found this book wildly entertaining, probably because I listened to this one in audiobook form. I was immediately drawn in because, HELLO, this audiobook has a full cast! I absolutely love a full cast when it comes to audiobooks, I feel like it makes them more entertaining. Written in a documentary interview style, similar to that of "Daisy Jones and the Six." I love the differentiation of the characters and when they all have their own voice! This book is read by Jesse Vilinsky, Lisa Flanagan, Pete Simonelli and Alexander Cendese. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all these narrators. They had perfect tone, so easy to understand at an advanced setting of speed. Genuinely had different voices for all the characters so I didn't feel lost when characters would switch. Overall, highly recommend listening to this one!

This book offers a lot of nostalgia as this is centered around a band formed in the 90s. Lots of bands that I grew up listening to are given a shout out. But the bands in this book are very different. What do you get when you mix music, music festivals and the apocalypse?! My Ex, the Antichrist. Written with plenty of ups and downs, a little bit of gore and rock and roll, what else could you possibly ask for!


Thank you to Hachette Audio and NetGalley for this ALC in exchange for my honest review!

PREMISE:
1998 – Lily Lawlor and Drake Morgan form The Shivers, a chaotic punk band with cult-like energy. Drake inspires faith in some. Fear in others. Lily? She's a believer.
2010 – At the peak of her fame, Lily walks into a police station and calmly confesses to murder.
Now – After over a decade of silence, Lily has agreed to an interview. And the rest of the band is finally ready to talk.

What follows is a story of prophecy, death, fame, love, and maybe... the Antichrist. Maybe it’s all true. Maybe none of it is. Either way, this is their story - and they’re sticking to it.


MY THOUGHTS:

I was*so excited to get an ARC of My Ex, The Antichrist from NetGalley. That title alone? Immediate yes. I heard it described as Daisy Jones & The Six meets The Omen - and that’s spot on.

Lily (aka Lilith - subtle, right?) forms a band with the magnetic and possibly prophetic Drake. She’s obsessed with him. He’s obsessed with signs, visions, and his own destiny. Together, they create music that… well, starts to mess with people’s heads.

The book jumps between timelines and formats - interviews, history clippings, and documentary-style chapters that give it a uniquely eerie vibe.

It’s weird, in the best way. Dark, funny, and totally original. I loved the band’s dynamic, especially as things spiral completely out of control. Shoutout to the church scene - it’s unhinged and SO much fun.

Why 4 stars instead of 5? Honestly, I wanted more from Drake’s POV. We see him through everyone else’s eyes, but I was craving a deeper look inside his head. Still, this was a blast.

If you love culty bands, apocalyptic vibes, and genre-bending chaos, this book delivers. Wild, weird, and devilishly entertaining.

Thank you Net Galley for providing me the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My Ex, The Antichrist, is the campy, cooky, surprisingly sincere love child of Daisy Jones and the Six, The Exorcist, and something altogether more outrageous like Rocky Horror.

Repressed Catholic School Girl™️ yearns for Something More™️, meets Cute And Mysterious Boy™️ who is - surprise - the devil in disguise! Rock music, group hallucinations, and a surprisingly comedic chain of killer clergy ensue.

I had such a fun time with this book. Very reminiscent of Daisy Jones with its documentary style then/now narrative structure, this breaks the band-doco mold by introducing a delish culty element alongside a heaping serve of humour. I absolutely cackled more than once, especially at some of the more ridiculous imagery (the giant sword wielding nun was a high point personally).

If there was one weak point of this book it was its ending. There was so much build up but the climatic moment - the bass drop if you will - was insufficient for the scope of the story. Slightly spoiler to say but I still don’t really understand how we went from post-we-killed-the-devil-and-lived-superstardom to asking to be arrested (not to mention how the hell was she convicted with no evidence and only her own ravings).

Weak ending aside, I enjoyed the time I spent with this book and find myself becoming a firm fan of DiLouie’s work. I definitely think this is work checking out if you feel a musical temptation in your soul… 😈

Oh my gosh - this book was so much fun! I loved the take on the end of times. It was a unique look at what we're willing to give up for not only love, but for our dreams.
Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this early!

Thank you Netgalley, Hachette Audio, Orbit Books, and Craig DiLouie for the ARC!

Okay so I think I would've loved this a little more if I was Christian and I liked rock music, BUT I will say that even though I am neither of those things, I still really enjoyed it. I think DiLouie did an excellent job with the different povs, interview styles, and other ways they wrote the story. I really did love the musical aspect and how much songs had to play with the story.

If you are a major fan of horror and rock music, maybe pick this up?

"It’s a familiar story: the starry rise and tragic fall of a rock band. This is not that story. This is one you haven’t heard—a tale of divine prophecy and a breakup. Oh, and the apocalypse…"

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We've all heard this tale before — the rockstar who sells their soul to the devil to gain fame and fortune and escape a life of hellish monotony. But what happens when it's your ex, and they might very well be starting the apocalypse through their music?

If you're a fan of Daisy Jones & The Six when it comes to former bandmates giving interviews years after an insane event broke them up, but want a hint of ✨satanic panic✨ ala We Sold Our Souls when it comes to a questionable rock-star ex (we've all been there), then this is the book for you!!

I was lucky enough to receive an audio-arc of this book, and let me tell you, that's for sure the way to go! Similar to the aforementioned TJR novel, the audio is narrated by numerous people, giving unique voices to all of our characters which is always a great way to go especially when you have interview-style narration.

I think my favorite part of this (and why it works so well) is that the "end" of the story, really is an end, but you're still left with the incredibly unsettling feeling that this is something that actually happened and could very well happen again, and you might not ever know. THAT is what makes a good horror novel (in my opinion) is the feeling that gets under your skin and ✨lingers✨ in a way that gives you goosebumps.

As with all things anti-Christ, there are very Christian based religious themes throughout the entire novel, and our MC definitely deals with a little built of religious guilt when it comes to her parents, and her "life choices", so keep that in mind when picking this up if that's something that is sensitive for you, but otherwise, the Christianity aspect is handled in a great way, and other religions also get involved with solving the little problem of, you know, ✨the anti-Christ bringing about the apocalypse✨.

We love to see religions playing nice to save the world. That's why it's fiction.

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My Ex, the Antichrist was published on July 1, 2025 and is now available to read & listen to! Thank you to Hachette Audio | Run For It for the advanced listening copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and any quotes listed may have changed in the final published copy.

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DNFed @ 32.6%, looks to be beginning of Ch 11 - got the audio from NetGalley, so the numbering can be off.
It's just been moving too slow, despite how hooked I was by the synopsis - if someone can convince me to pick this back up, I'd be interested to hear their thoughts.

I really enjoyed this one! I was drawn into it and went through it fairly quickly but I will say the end fizzled out a little for me. Overall, I think it was a good book and I have already recommended it to people. I enjoyed the different people talking throughout the book and the format of it seeming to be an interview for a book. I'd say 3.5 rounded up to 4 for me!

Thank you NetGalley and Hachette Audio for this ARC.

If you love watching music documentaries then this is for you. If you enjoyed Daisy Jones and The Six as well as We Sold Our Souls then this is for you!!

For the most part I have a really hard time doing audio, just don’t ever have the attention span for it. But, this is the best audio I’ve ever done. I’m sure my love for music documentaries was the reason why. I really enjoyed the format. This is one where I think the audio would definitely be better than the book.

While listening the only thing I thought it was missing was the bands music in the background but then around 80% surprise. You get a small snippet which just catapulted this to a 5 star rating for me.

If you like music documentaries with a mix of the anti-christ running amok I highly recommend.

The premise of this book was so intriguing and the use of interviews to tell the story was super fun and a great way to tell the story. I love the time period in which is book is set in while being told in the future with hindsight providing some tension and adding to the suspense of the novel. The story itself is so unique and seeing how this band grows and how the story unfolds had me wanting to see how it all ends. The characters, atmosphere and story was all compelling and I theology enjoyed this book. My only critique of this novel would be the lack of horror elements, I wasn't really scared at all until the church and even then I never felt like there was a true villain / monster. I listened to the audiobook and found that the narrators really added some magic to the story where at moments I laughed out loud due to the timing of their line reads.

Overall, I gave this book a four star read!
Thank you for this early copy!

(mild spoilers ahead)

I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed My Ex, the Antichrist. While I’d personally rate it closer to 3.5 stars, I’m rounding up because Goodreads doesn’t allow half-stars. (Goodreads really needs to adjust this feature... half-stars are important!)

What really worked for me was the inventive storytelling format: the novel unfolds as a series of interviews and documentary-style snippets, giving it a frenetic, almost cinematic energy that fits the punk rock backdrop perfectly. The oral history approach -- think "Behind the Music" meets supernatural horror -- kept the pace brisk and the tension high, even if the constant perspective shifts might feel choppy to some readers.

The premise is wild: A sheltered college chick falls for a charismatic bad boy, only to discover he’s the literal Antichrist. Their band quickly becomes infamous, but it's not just for their music. The music is great, but the chaos and violence that follows their performances is what really gets people talking. The girl, Lily, decides pretty early on to give up on her relationship and the band, leaving him behind and starting fresh with the band members he left behind. He joins another band.

Then, inevitably, a battle of the bands ensues.

The blend of doomed love, apocalyptic stakes, and music-as-magic was both outrageous and oddly compelling.

DiLouie does an excellent job fleshing out the main characters, especially Lily. The supporting cast also gets enough depth to make the band dynamics feel authentic and messy in all the right ways.

That said, the book isn’t perfect. The format, while creative, can sometimes disrupt the flow. I listened in audio format, and I'm pretty sure that made it even harder to follow at times.

Additionally, the plot occasionally leans into melodrama or stretches believability even for a supernatural horror story. Still, the sheer energy and originality won me over.

Still, if you’re intrigued by musically-infused horror with a bold, unconventional structure, it's worth picking up. It’s not flawless, but it’s a wild ride that’s hard to put down.