My Ex, the Antichrist by Craig DiLouie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**4.5-stars**
My Ex, the Antichrist is quite literally a dream book for me. Putting it simply, I would describe this one as Daisy Jones and the Six for Horror Readers.
If you’re like me, and love the Horror genre above all others, and you possibly read Daisy Jones and the Six, and loved it too, but thought, ‘where’s the murder? Where’s the chaos?‘
This book is for you!
In this book, we follow the rise and fall of a fictional punk band called The Shivers. Lily and her boyfriend, Drake, are the founding members of the group, then pulling in Ramona, Eric and Malcolm.
The entire novel reads like a Behind the Music episode on steroids, and much like Daisy Jones, I highly recommend the audiobook format for maximum impact.
We know that at the end of their run, Lily had confessed to murder. All was steeped in mystery, as the band refused to talk to anyone about what had happened, leading up to Lily taking such drastic action.
A decade later, Lily has agreed to an interview, and the rest of the band members follow suit. This book is comprised of those interviews, perfectly placed to allow the whole history of the band to play out.
This was such a great time. As mentioned above, 1,000,000% recommend the audiobook format if you’re going to pick this one up. I can’t stress this enough, because of how well the audio production is done. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it half as much if I had just read a physical copy.
More than just the story of the band, I also loved the themes explored, and tend to enjoy epistolary format anyway, so this was a complete treat. I had no idea that’s how this story was going to be told.
It did feel a little stretched out in certain areas, but overall, it was a hella entertaining read. It reads super quickly, and is my favorite Craig DiLouie to date.
It may have you walking away thinking, maybe your ex isn’t so terrible after all…
Thank you to the publisher, Orbit Books and Hachette Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. This was a complete surprise! So good!