The Exorsistah: X Returns

The demon opened all of its three mouths as wide as they could go and they were each big enough to consume my entire body in two bites.It got darker and darker, and when I couldn’t see anything at all, it clamped down right on my chest and I could feel its teeth breaking through my skin. The monster yelled one word: “Mine!”

Book: The Exorsistah: X Returns by Claudia Mair Burney, Simon and Schuster, Inc, 2010

Genre: Supernatural/Realistic Fiction

Target Audience: Girls 17-30

Warning: This book is truly best for mature readers – those who have studied and can distinguish Scriptural truth from things other religions have made up.

Subjects: Spiritual warfare, Catholicism, Sexual temptation, Prayer

Summary: X is gone. She’s determined to find and save her mom and she’s determined to free Francis to pursue the priesthood. So she leaves. And immediately reaches a dead end. Her mom isn’t where she thought and in fact no one knows where her mom is! So Emme goes where the last known person connected with her mom was last known to be connected and begins a spiritual battle, not just for her mother, not just for the freedom from sexual attraction to Francis, but for her very life! It seems the demons have a personal interest in her and will do whatever it takes to destroy her and those she loves. Will her time in the monastery teach her what she needs to know to survive?

Notes: I’m honestly not sure how to categorize this book. It’s kind of Christian fiction, but kind of not. It is more Catholic than anything else. The reason I say that is the major focus on the saints, praying to them, keeping statues of them around, and interacting with them almost more than God. They also put an extremely large emphasis at the end on the importance of Emme reading a book that’s not a part of the Bible, but is one of the books Catholics add to the Bible. There is also an interesting element I did not know to be a part of Catholicism beliefs as well – ghosts. Two characters who are dead do not go to Heaven or Hell but rather stay around as ghosts and talk with Emme.

Now, all of that said, the book does have some very good spiritual elements. Emme is afraid to trust in anything good and because of her own fears, she justifies leaving the place and person God wanted her to be with. There is strong encouragement to pray continually, to put your trust in Christ rather than in your own strength, to forgive those who have hurt you, to welcome and show love to the hurting.

So if Christians can set aside the incorrect theology, there is much good in this book, many challenging scriptural lessons.

Recommendation Scale: 5/5 and 0/5 depending on who is reading it

Reviewer: J:-)mi

Titus 1:9 – He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.