Grady Hendrix

Possible Triggers: Sexual Assault, Devil Worshipers
To begin with i have to say that this was by no means my favorite book by this author. Kris Pulaski plays in the heavy metal band, Dürt Würk in the 1990's. The band was on the on the brink of success when the lead singer, Terry Hunt, has torn the band apart and left to start a solo career. It seemed that Terry’s rise to success was at the cost of selling the souls of his friends in the band. You read it right! He sold his long-time friends' souls for rock’n’roll…or in this case, Heavy Metal. Kris’s pitiful present-day existence is working as a receptionist at the Best Western, and if you can read the "Welcome to Hell" chapter, then you will be able to follow Kris on her journey as she gets carried from Pennsylvania to a Satanic rehab center, and then to Las Vegas. She has had years of hard work, crazy and exciting, challenges and often, some very nasty experiences while on the road with the band, but these were "child's play" compared to this trip. The journey to Las Vegas is overwhelming, but Kris is on a mission...a mission that she literally can’t ignore. She meets a lot of colorful characters along the way and had a really weird thing with UPS. You'll have to read the book if you want to find out what that was. Kris was an interesting, sometimes gross, and often unpredictable character which actually made her all the more interesting. While it seems as though she has given up her Best Western job, she still is set on stopping her old bandmate, Terry Hunt. This "mission" lights a new fire under Kris, and you feel her vibe that says "don’t give up and let the system win, and don’t let the bullies push or control you". I just heard this author speak about another of his books, so after hearing him speak, I'm not at all surprised that he has cleverly used snippets of radio and newspaper articles to show how "news" travels and information, even misinformation, spreads like wildfire. If you are like me and a bit too old for the "heavy metal" era...you probably won't understand all the music references...but you will still relate to the meat of the story. Overall We Sold Our Souls is sometimes funny, it's really gross in places, it's a complexity of cleverly blended horror, pop culture, and conspiracy theories, mixed with a heavy dose of music history. I'm not at all a fan of Heavy Metal music (I use the term "music", very loosely) You don't have to like the music to just enjoy the story.… (more)

Overall I enjoyed this book. I hadn't realized going into this that Hendrix also wrote Horrorstor, although now I can see that. Both of them don't blend their different elements seamlessly, and they both can be pretty gruesome and gory. This one is blending sort of "Real Housewives of South Carolina" with horror, and there was a very sharp contrast between the overall mundaneness of ordinary life with the horror. Actually, I didn't think it was horror so much as it was gore. I could have used more horror. Also, I thought the social commentary was rather ham-fisted and awkward. I'm not at all opposed to it, but it could have been done better. For example, the one black character uses the term "colored." I don't know about you, but the only people I have EVER known to use that term are old white people. I can't think of any time I have heard a black person use that term outside of a historical context.

I did like all the characters, and overall the story was entertaining and at least somewhat scary. I did enjoy the theme of "housewives vs vampire."… (more)

As someone who grew up in this era and who has a lifelong bestie - although neither of us was possessed by demons - yes, this was a lot of fun. It also kept us guessing for a while over whether she was really possessed by a demon or just teenage angst. (Spoiler: it’s a demon.). I also liked the inserts/excerpts from pamphlets, news articles, journal entries, etc. I really enjoyed the twist about how they handled the demon at the end. I feel like I should have seen it coming, but it was still very satisfying. Hendrix really does do the human element very well.… (more)