Book Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
About the book
They call them wayward girls.
Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast.
And they’re sent to the Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened. And where every moment of their waking day is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them.
Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone.
There, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There's Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to keep her baby and escape to a commune. Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
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.
Why we love it
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a character-driven supernatural fantasy set in 1970s America, which tells the story of four teenagers spending the summer at Wellwood House in Florida, a place where young pregnant girls are sent to give birth in secret.
Fern, Rose, Holly, and Zinnia have been abandoned by their families, cut off from everyone they know and forced to assume pseudonyms to hide their true identities.
From the moment they arrive, they're treated with prejudice and callous indifference by the home's owner, Miss Wellwood, and by the doctor and nurse who work for her. In exchange for food, board and medical care, they're expected to hand over their babies for adoption to the highest bidder and provided with little emotional support for the trauma they're going through.
By chance, they encounter Miss Parcae, an enigmatic traveling librarian who loans them a spell-book and encourages them to use the information within it to reclaim power and control over their own destiny.
The offer is understandably tempting, but the girls soon discover that witchcraft comes with a price and the girls are quickly caught up in supernatural events far beyond their understanding. And like all the other adults in their lives, it soon becomes clear that Miss Parcae has an agenda of her own and little regard for the girls' own thoughts and desires.
It’s hard to say whether the true horror in the book lies in the supernatural elements or in its raw and unflinching portrayal of teenage pregnancy - fantasy and science fiction have often been used as a powerful way of giving voice to important issues in an accessible way. And set in a pre-Roe vs Wade era, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls feels chillingly relevant given the ongoing erosion of women's rights in the US today and the rise of extremism around the world. It's a stark reminder of the grim reality that faced so many women throughout history.
Grady Hendrix's meticulous research shows throughout in the book, skilfully telling the story of these four young girls, pregnant through naivety, ignorance, or abuse, and then cast out and mistreated by the world around them at a time when they needed all the love and support they could get.
Powerful and emotional, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a book that will leave you simultaneously heart-broken and filled with pure rage against a system and society that treated women and girls so terribly, that ripped children away from their mothers and profited off human tragedy. In this day and age, it should probably be compulsory reading.
