I have been highly anticipating the release of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix with an outstanding premise and cover art. However, in the end I feel like this novel just wasn’t for me.
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, to give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.
Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.
Grady Hendrix crafts a unique premise set against the backdrop of Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida—a place shrouded in secrecy and societal judgment. Additionally, he weaves in acts of witchcraft. This, plus the name Grady Hendrix, was enough to pull me into reading Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. However, Hendrix left me wanting more from this much anticipated book.
While I didn’t hate the book, I was hoping for a different book than I was presented with and that is typically the fault of the reader and not the author. So, as in any review this is coming from my place in society and such and not the ability for Hendrix to craft a story. Hendrix is known for telling tales with unique plots and characters and this is no different here.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is classified as a horror novel and while the horrors within are not what typically is expected, they are horrors indeed. Hendrix was able to mix slight supernatural horror (a dab of witchcraft) with the real life horrors of child birth and what women (especially unwed pregnant women) have to deal with in the 1970s. This balance brings a different feel to the book. While I would’ve preferred more of the witchcraft horror, it didn’t take away from the overall story at hand.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls‘ strength lies within the exploration of real-life terrors—those encountered by unwed mothers navigating shame-inflicted societies and grappling with impending childbirth’s physicality and emotional weight. Despite my expectations set by its title and initial premise, this novel successfully shines light on these more personal experiences rather than indulging heavily in fantastical elements.
Hendrix succeeds at establishing a strong sense of time and place; immersing us into the constricting realities faced by these women during the 1970s—a time when autonomy over one’s body was still fervently contested. This is a typical strength for the author as his locations tend to take on a role of almost being another character in his stories.
While location and setting were tremendously written, Hendrix seems to have stumbled at character development with the slow burn of this book. What does emerge is the authentic depiction of camaraderie amongst these young women who initially find themselves isolated both physically within Wellwood House’s confines—and emotionally due to society’s judgment on them.
With a unique premise and Grady Hendrix’s signature writing style, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls holds a mirror to the past while echoing themes relevant even today. While not without criticism, this latest outing for Hendrix gives us a blend of history, power dynamics, sisterhood, and a dash of witchcraft. In the end, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls was just not for me (and I might be in the minority on this one).
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls hits bookstores everywhere on January 14, 2025 from Berkley Books. The audiobook, narrated by Leslie Howard, Hillary Huber & Sara Morsey, is available for pre-order at Libro.fm.
