I read a blurb describing this novel as The Breakfast Club set in hell instead of high school and was instantly sold.
Told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Madison Spencer (the Ally Sheedy of the group), Madison is a newly arrived inhabitant of hell. It’s a combination of her diary entries, “Are you there, Satan? It’s me, Madison”; an essay on the topic of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’; and fair warning to the rest of us of the unlikely and surprising things that automatically land you in hell (peeing in swimming pools, not covering your mouth when you cough, blowing your car horn too many times…) Madison and her gang decide to set out to find Satan, and the resulting journey through hell is just as horrific as you would imagine, though perhaps a lot more mundane.
The humour of the story, the gross-out factor and the mix of religion, mythology, history and the a classic 80’s movie make this a very enjoyable read.
