Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix review: The Craft meets One Born Every Minute

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix: The review

It’s 1970 in the southern states of America. Fifteen year old Fern has found herself pregnant. A young, unwed girl having a baby doesn’t fly, so she’s sent to a home for unwed mothers, where she meets lots of other girls in her situation. Treated very much like a disgraced sinner, Fern’s time at the home isn’t a happy one. In fact, Fern isn’t even her real name: the girls are forced to be anonymous, so their reputations aren’t tarnished when they return to their real life. And so once their babies have been taken off them, they won’t ever be able to find them again. 

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is, of course, fiction, but we know homes like this very much did exist. It is, at times, harrowing and upsetting, and Hendrix doesn’t hold back on details. He goes into visceral, graphic detail about birth, with these young girls suffering some of the most traumatic deliveries possible. If you are pregnant or trying to conceive, I’d maybe hold off on this one for a while.

It’s also going to be a hard read if adoption is something close to your heart. The way these girls are coerced, sometimes tricked, into relinquishing their babies, is heartbreaking. Forced into signing birth certificates with fake names, the powers that be make sure there is no way mother and baby can ever find each other later in life.

But as its title suggests, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls isn’t all about birthing illegitimate children and giving them up for adoption. There isn’t much to do in the home, and the only respite Fern and her friends get is a visit from a mobile library once every two weeks. When the mysterious librarian gives Fern a book on witchcraft, she first thinks it’s a silly, innocent book. But when the pages change from one day to the next, she and her friends realise they have something powerful in their hands. Something that could help them get revenge on the people running the home and treating them so badly.

What ensues is a discovery of power, of danger, of making some bad decisions and of getting involved in things they probably definitely shouldn’t have. Hendrix’s depiction of witches here isn’t the warm-hearted, potion-brewing, cat-loving whimsical ladies of cosy fantasy. They’re mean, hard-hearted, and you don’t want to get on their wrong side. Unfortunately, that’s exactly where Fern ends up.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is at times fraught and disturbing, and other times funny and lighthearted. It makes for a riotous journey that will make you squirm, keep you on the edge of your seat, and make you smile in equal measure. I loved every moment of this ride with Fern and her newfound friends.