Book Review- The Exorcist
My personal rating: 4 out of 5 Stars.
The Exorcist
As a kid I was always scared as hell by evil spirits, demon possessions and all. But I outgrew it in my late teen and young adult years. I figured out that the more scary things in life are crime, psychos, pedophile, rapists, violent criminals, drugies, genocides and wars and also diseases! But well, I think it was somewhere in 2007, when I got laid off and had no work. I would be in deep trouble but I had some money saved so I got into binge book buying off a website called Trademe (which is New Zealand equivalent of Ebay). I bought tons of second hand books. It was always good to buy a second hand cheap book so that you don’t have to worry about returning it to library.
I bought Exorcist paperback (and also later the sequel Legion) for only about $1. It was a dirty, yellowed and worn out paper back when it arrived in the mail. I was never fan of horro fiction and despite the popularity of Stephen King (who I have come to admire as a person listening to his interviews, though I still havn’t anything by him cover to cover) and Dean Koontz, I never ever felt like reading a horror or supernatural novel. But Exorcism and demon possession stuff mystified me. Like me, many people come to this book through the Exorcist movie. And yes, this book has much more than movie. I found it surprisingly good, entertaining and yes! I was spooked in places. There is something about diabolical demons creeping into the life of innocent and sweet girl that is very unsettling.
I think I am giving this book 4 stars for originality .. well not that evil spirit stuff hasn’t been tried before in the genre of horror writing.. But Blatty gets credit for making Jesuits, the cool guys. I also loved knowing about all the workings of Jesuits, the Catholic Church, Georgetown University and also the things about exorcism. But on the other hand I blame Blatty for promoting superstition and promoting things like ESP and stuff as facts. He does the same in the second book, The Legion. So well… 4 stars for making this book scary and also for surprisingly good writing in many places.
Tags: Blatty William Peter, Book Review, Books, Fiction, Horror, The Exorcism, William Peter Blatty
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