#83 in Horror
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
- 496
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 1 week on the list, peaked at #7
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Our view
“Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” is horror with a tender heart, set in a Florida maternity home for unwed teenagers in 1970. Grady Hendrix writes the girls with empathy, and once they find a book of spells its most graphic scenes stay unflinchingly close to pregnancy and childbirth. It is a long, powerful novel about how they are punished, meant to leave anger behind it, and best for readers with a strong stomach.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is a 2025 horror novel by American writer Grady Hendrix. It was first published in January 2025 in the United States by Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and in the United Kingdom by Tor Books. The novel is set in Florida in 1970, and is about a group of pregnant teenage girls living in a maternity home for unwed girls who discover a book on witchcraft.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 242 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 62% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 242 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is Witchcraft for Wayward Girls?
It has 496 pages — longer than 73% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.6 and 7.7, closest to this book.
