My Ex, the Antichrist

📖 My Ex, the Antichrist🖋️ Craig DiLouie🗣️ Lisa Flanagan, Jesse Vilinsky, Alexander Cendese, Pete SimonelliPublished: July 1, 2025I would like to thank NetGalley, Orbit Books, Hachette Audio, and the author for an advanced copy of the ebook and audiobook. All opinions are my own.“And like a bird allowed to fly once or twice a week, my spirit would soar over the crowd while I shredded my tunes on stage. I’d belt out song after song in a manic catharsis of joy and freedom and power.”Read if you like:🎸 Rock music🧟‍♀️ Toxic relationships☄️ Apocalyptic settings🫣 Horror> 4️⃣ POVs📍Bethlehem, PA USA 🇺🇸In the late 90s Lily Lawlor meets charming Drake Morgan who has the uncanny ability to know exactly what she wants. Everywhere he goes he inspires devotion or fear. They form a band and their music has strange effects on their audience. When their battle of the bands performance ends in a riot and deaths, Lily suspects that her boyfriend has ungodly powers. Now, in the present day, the band is opening up about their experience in an interview.I don’t read a lot of horror but I really liked this one. It’s really not that heavy on horror, and wasn’t overly grotesque. I loved the format with the different band members and other accessory characters giving their own stories in an interview style and how everything fit together. The full cast audio made it binge-able. If you’re looking for something different, give this one a try.

Punk music, grunge music, and ear bleeding sounds that seemed to grab the youth of the 90s.  Now imagine that music really possesses you and brings out your deepest self.  That's what Lilly and The Shivers music can do.  Her then boyfriend dreams of success and Armageddon.   And, of course, he is talented, gorgeous, and sexy.  Oh yeah, and the Antichrist.Loved this book. The story was original, fun, and flowed easily. I listened to the Audiobook, which I suggest to get the full feel of the "interview" style storytelling.Highly recommended.  Published July 01, 2025

I think this would make a good movie. The story line totally played like a movie in my head. I enjoyed the cast in the audiobook, it made it easier to see how an awesome movie it would make. But I also thought it was slow. The beginning is slow, and the ending even slower. Slow and long because I felt the ending just kept going and going. The second half was where all the action was, where it all comes together and all the cool details happen. I liked that it took place in the music setting but it felt like the book focused more on the putting together the band and not the rest of the end of the world stuff. I wanted more of that and more of the out control horror. But otherwise it was an enjoyable read.

At the height of stardom, Lily Lawless, lead singer and guitarist of the punk pop band The Shivers, walks into a police station and confesses to a murder 10 years prior. Now, 10 years after Lily's confession, despite the band's number one rule to never talk about Drake, Lily's ex, the band follows Lily's lead to be interviewed about the events leading up to the murder.This was such a crazy story and definitely not what I was expecting (though not in a bad way). I picked this one up based on the title, thinking it was probably meant as an exaggeration. But lo and behold, the FMC's ex is in fact, the literal anti-Christ, which leads to a lot of interesting religious themes and questions.One of my favorite parts about this book is, since it's told through a series of interviews with the band members, as well as other people who were affected by some of the events that took place, you get a much broader view of what's happening throughout the story. You also get a better sense for some of the main characters as you get multiple people's impressions and opinions of them. The story also gives a glimpse into the music industry and the punk scene in the late 1990s, which I found really interesting.There are a few scenes that are pretty brutal, when the anti-Christ uses the band's music to remove the listeners inhibitions, leading to riots, as well as some attacks on the anti-Christ by members of the Church. However, the actual murder that Lily confesses to felt incredibly anti-climactic after everything that led up to it. Maybe that was the point? But honestly, I actually had to rewind the audio a bit after it happened because I thought I had missed something.🎧 I listened to this one on audio, narrated by Lisa Flanagan, Jesse Vilinksy, Alexander Cendese, and Pete Simonelli. Each narrator reads as the part of one of the four pivotal band members, as well as the handful of other people who are interviewd as part of the story. Because of how the interviews are done and presented throughout the book, having this many narrators was actually really effective and made for a very interesting listening experience.Read if you like:Punk rock MCsCampy horrorTeenage dirtbagFound familyReligious themesTold through interviewsMulti-POV

First of all, the delivery of this story as a combination of interviews? Genius. I loved being able to get each band member's perspective and feel the tonal changes depending on who was speaking. Seeing them through each other's point of view was also a riot. The humor in this was top-notch and cut through the horror with perfect balance.One thing I did not expect going into this was to feel so many dang emotions. Why did it all hit so hard? This is definitely one I'll be pushing at people whenever possible.