I love horror and I enjoy when horror authors spend some time skirting into other genres and issues, but this book didn’t really offer anything in terms of horror other than some harsh descriptors and the realization that the 60s/70s were awful for women. 

If this book would’ve just been a piece of fiction about the struggles of pregnant teens in the time frame, it would have been decent, though I’d have hoped for a better way to end it (and a better way to involve the house help in the story to avoid the whole trope with that). The addition of magic was barely sprinkled in and was wasted conflict because none of it even mattered. And I get it… maybe we all could manage our expectations when we pick up a book because this story wasn’t bad at all, but after having such a misleading title with The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, I was pretty bummed to be sliding into yet another incorrectly titled book. I loved the vampire book, but I didn’t like the misleading title and most of my book club at the time couldn’t overcome the disappointment and enjoy the book for what it was. I’m just saying, could he title and describe his books more accurately so I don’t have to defend or be let down by false expectations? This just wasn’t what I thought I was getting into at all when I picked it up. 

I was disappointed that Fern didn’t learn anything other than it was unfair to have been forced to make such choices as a little girl, but yet she seemed to go completely back to normal afterwards. I was upset that Holly always seemed to draw the short straw and the last little bit of retaliation towards to Reverend wasn’t enough to satisfy that conflict either. 

Honestly, I’m just not sure what the point of this book was except to say that people are generally terrible and yet we are all still trying to survive in a world that isn’t perfect, but that point kind of undermines any of the so called villains. And maybe THAT was the point, but we could have gotten that without any of the witchcraft.. idk I’m just not really happy with how it all unfolded.