Set in the summer of 1970, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls takes place at the Wellwood House, a facility where pregnant teenagers are sent in order to finish coming to term and surrender their newborn children. These young ladies arrive at Wellwood House and are given a new name and told to never reveal their actual past to the other girls. Their job is simple: finish their pregnancy, give up their baby, and return to their lives and forget their stay ever happened. None of the girls know each other's real names or even what city they are from, and they are all under the strict eye of Ms. Wellwood and the total control of the facility's medical staff.
Given their situation, it isn't all that surprising that these girls find themselves looking for some form of control over their destiny, and when the mobile library comes around and the librarian offers Fern (not her real name, of course) a small book called "How to be a Groovy Witch," she is only amused at first. Given that Fern has already read every book at Wellwood House though, her amusement turns to curiosity and she finds herself checking to see exactly what the book has to offer.
In one of her first experiments with this strange book, Fern, along with her new friends Holly, Rose and Zinnia, attempt to cure Zinnia of her extreme morning sickness. After performing a ritual described in the book, they are surprised to find it works and the constant nausea and vomiting that Zinnia has been experiencing has been transferred to someone else.
As the four ladies become closer friends, they find themselves forming a coven of sorts and struggle to keep their efforts a secret from the other residents of Wellwood House, but when 14 year old Holly finally speaks up and tells the other three who is responsible for her pregnancy and her situation back home, Fern, Rose and Zinnia become focused on finding some way to keep Holly from returning to her home.
As you might expect, this need is exactly the opening that the librarian who gave Fern "How to be a Groovy Witch" needs in order to convince the girls that they need the power she is offering. Now, our four pregnant, teenage budding witches will find themselves facing moral dilemmas, all while the ticking clock that is their pregnancy looms over each one of them.
At this point, I've read several of Hendrix's books. I especially loved Final Girl Support Group and enjoyed How to Sell a Haunted House. Horrorstör was also a fun read that had a somewhat amusing setup to it, but overall is my least favorite. I think I would rank Witchcraft for Wayward Girls between How to Sell a Haunted House and Horrorstör. While the supernatural elements of the witches and their magic are very pronounced in this book, they are hardly the central horror element of the story. Instead, there is a lot of focus on how pregnant teens are seen by society, especially in the 1970s, and while that is by no means a detractor for this book, it does change the focus a bit.
Hendrix does a masterful job of putting the reader in the difficult positions of these girls and, at times, that makes it an uncomfortable book to read. But then again, I feel like that is the point. So while this book is about a group of young ladies who discover witchcraft, there is a major part of this book that has nothing really to do with that. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls is by no means a bad book, it just wasn't quite what I was expecting. I still enjoyed the read, but it just couldn't compete with Final Girl Support Group and How to Sell a Haunted House.
