A Head Full of Ghosts: A Novel Kindle Edition

Halloween is right around the corner and in spirit of the holiday I want to read some of the horror books I have been neglecting for years now. This book was at the top of my list. And on sale. Coincidence? I think so! I am so glad I read this one. It's creepy, bizarre, and mind boggling. The author leaves many questions in readers minds throughout the story and even at the end. Readers interpretation of the events is key in this novel, so I suggest keeping a very open mind when reading it- you'll enjoy it more if you do.With that being said, this book is much more than I was expecting. Having thought I was just going to get a good scare was quickly replaced by the reality that this isn't what the book is about. Sure, there are scary moments, times when readers skin will crawl, and times when I felt as if I was going just as mad as some of the characters. But it is also deeply unsettling in a realistic way as it skillfully portrays mental illness and its effects on the family. Additionally, it depicts a family’s decent in a societal way and the effects it also has. Put all this together and you get a nearly brilliant novel that will chill you to the core.I don’t want to say much more about the plot because the books summary does a nice job in its description but also because I think that to fully grasp what is happening in the story that you need to read it on your own without spoilers. I will say this though, there is a lot going on in this novel. Schizophrenia, depression, paranoia, depression, and susceptibility are integral parts of the novel. So are possession, demons, and exorcism. This book will make you nervous. It may make you look over your shoulder when you enter a dark room. And it will scare the crap out of you. Should you read it? I would recommend it...

I love horror and have read so much, so I was excited to read this book.... and this book was so bad. The writing is jarring and painful to read. The main character is writing a blog that supposedly gets picked up by Fangoria but the writing is so childish and terrible, I would sue Paul Tremblay if I worked for Fangoria. The story is told through the main character reliving her memories of her 8 year old self and she constantly states that she can`t remember specific details since it was 15 years ago. But then the writing states crazy details such as what videos she deletes off of her video camera and their length"I reviewed the day’s work and decided I could delete the following: my full-sprint tour of the house and backyard; the ten minutes of spy-camming who came in and out of the crew’s trailer; the eight minutes of long-distance footage of the Cox kids playing basketball in their driveway; my taping Jenn taping me, with her turning away from the camera first and giving me a raspberry; the footage of Marjorie’s closed door" (141).I understand the novel wants to use the unreliable narrator trope, but it is so unrealistic how much detail is given about irrelevant things and, conveniently, leaves out large plot points because she "can't remember". The premise brings together exorcism and reality TV, which is unique, but it still wasn't anything new. They just bring together all the stereotypes from The Exorcist (puking, bed rattling, perverse female activity) and all the stereotypes of reality TV (focus on profit and fame, don't care about the family) and made a book about it. No new themes regarding these overused tropes were introduced. No originality, just regurgitated ideas.* SPOILERS *So the ending....was extremely overhyped and just rushed. The entire book revolves around the breakdown of this family around mental illness and exorcism and media....and then the family is poisoned to death except the youngest. The End. This ending is so anticlimactic and just doesn't fit into the rest of the book. It would be the equivalent of watching John Carpenter's The Thing and watching MacReady die in his sleep. You write a story about mental illness and possession and then have the family die...with poison? It just doesn't fit the formula and will leave you feeling disappointed.I just wouldn't recommend this book and lost a little respect for the Bram Stoker award

This was not Horror/Supernatural. Not a Mystery novel and not a thriller. At best it read like mediocre fan fiction - a blending of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist meets 21st century blogging. Dull writing, wooden characters, weak dialogue. Slow pacing, nothing of interest that I’ll remember. I didn’t care about any of the characters at all. And I’m not even going to get started with the schizophrenia-versus-demonic-possession aspect. The final chapters, when “the plot twist” is revealed, I just rolled my eyes. Silly, abrupt and not believable or satisfying. Skip this one.

This was a good read --- but not a great one. The reason I begin with that assertion is that, based on the enormous amount of hype I read regarding this story, it did not come close (for me) in living up to that advanced praise.To begin with, this is NOT a ghost story --- although many blurbs would like you to think that. It is a thriller disguised as dark satire. The Barrett family allow a reality film crew into their home to film what is believed to be the demonic possession of their 14-year-old daughter, Marjorie. The novel is told from the point of view of the younger sister, Meredith or 'Merry'.A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS takes swipes at reality television, religion, audience gullibility and overall pandering to an audience looking to consume a dose of all of the above. While there are a few chilling moments the true purpose of this novel is to pose a mystery as to whether or not Marjorie is truly possessed or merely a young sociopath taking everyone for a dark ride.

Nothing rattles me anymore. Horror books are predictabled and disappointing. Horror films are downright embarrassing nowadays. <b>But this book got under my skin.</b>This is not another possession/exorcism books, it questions everything and leaves the door open for you to make up your own mind. Regardless if Marjorie, the 14-year-old girl suffering from 'demonic' episodes, is possessed by evil or taken hostage by schizophrenia, her relationship with her little sister Merry, an 8-year-old girl full of humour and wisdom that only children have, will break your heart. She looks up to her older sister, craves her attention and their conversations are so relatable if you grew up with siblings. What happens to Marjorie seems unjust and the conclusion is wicked.But this isn't some heartbreaking family drama. This is a horror novel and it the way that it crawls into mind and lets your imagination run wild is terrifying. I literally lost a night of sleep because of the images in my head (I have a little sister who mysteriously turned up in my bedroom in the middle of the night about ten years ago. She stood staring into my middle sister's face who was fast asleep. She claimed she had no knowledge of it and she's never sleepwalked and the bedroom door was shut - who shuts a door behind them when they're sleepwalking? - and this book sort of reignited that memory and I had to wait til the sun came up to be able to shut my eyes) from this book.Nothing is exaggerated or overdone, and perhaps that is why this is so scary. Because it could be real. Everything the family does (including filming the exorcism) is kind of understandable, they are on the brink of complete desperation, complete falling-apart desperation, and you can feel the tension strung tight all the way through.Although this is a plot that has been done over and over (and it makes mention of this in the book, as well as questioning how everything that's done or said runs parallel with popular horror films), it is wholly authentic and original with how it handles it. It doesn't portray Marjorie as a monster or a deranged lunatic, just a sick teenager struggling with how to cope with her detoriating mental issues as well as her turbulent life in general being at that age. It's mercy that the book is narrated from her little sister's 8-year-old eyes and that's what makes the ending so heart wrenching. Maybe I related it too much to my own sisters and us growing up, but the ending was a shocker to me and I was a distraught by it. I'm very impressed (after reading the first chapter of two horror novels before it, I wasn't expecting to get much further) and I recommend that everybody gives this a read.

Paul Tremblay can write: you don’t get to be juror on the Shirley Jackson awards without having some sort of pedigree.Stephen King says this book is a great read for book clubs and has a lot to unpack. King’s book recommendations can be taken with a pinch of salt in my experience though, so I read this with interest: it’s been a long time since I read a horror story which really affected me and I was hoping for good things. Ultimately I enjoyed the book well enough, but the enjoyment tended to come from the recognition of other works referenced in it: overtly or otherwise.At the simplest level it’s a story of a struggling family and the filming of the elder sister’s possible possession and the film crew who make a reality show of her exorcism. It’s told from the point of view of the girl’s younger sister as she recounts the story to a non fiction writer keen to document the tale Year’s later, intercut with a blogger recounting the tv series.There’s nothing new in the actual events: the book goes out of its way to draw comparisons to cultural references of a similar story: at one point listing all the similar themed works on the protagonist’s dvd shelves. Even the possible ‘reality’ element of the tale is well worn through the many mockumentary movies out there from Blair Witch onwards.There is a wrinkle towards the end (I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a twist), which calls into question what we’ve read, without really answering the underlying ‘why’.Was the book scary? No. Not at all. Through using the blogger description device, the line between the younger sister’s recount of events and the tv series description blur into a feeling of sameness (there is a reason for this, but you’ll see that when you read it). The most interesting aspect of the book is the relationship between the sisters and their love- although this too becomes blurred and motivations and actions become unclear.Ultimately reading as a straight story, there’s too much we’ve seen too many times before, so that if we are familiar with the genre, we spend most of our time drawing comparisons (The Exorcist being the most obvious answer, and the book both compares and tries to distance itself from that work through repeated reference- but at no time does it match that book’s ‘horror’.) rather than feeling we’re getting anything original.The secondary characters in the book - from parents to film crew are weak: both as characters and in terms of motives, but the author writes the main characters well: if somewhat schizophrenically (no pun intended given the older sister’s potential mental issues) in terms of the actions and feelings given their ages.If there is any doubt about the author’s intentions it is dispelled by the book’s last 10% (I read the book on kindle, and thought it was getting interesting with 10% left to read, only to find that was it and the story ended), which provides, as the author puts it ‘liner Notes/ dvd extras’ where he outlines most of the film and book references he was overtly or subtly using throughout the story. There’s also an essay on horror and culture which was an interesting read, and questions suitable for a book club.Overall? An interesting enough read, but not throwing anything new out there, and the fact it has been optioned as a film project is neither surprising nor of any real interest: it’s all too easy to see how that will turn out, and any meta elements of the text will, I think, just become the cliched story it is trying to highlight in the book.

I was excited to read this when I saw that Stephen King had commented on how scary it was, but ended up very disappointed and annoyed that I'd been so gullible. It has some potential, and the characters were easily relatable at first, but the main kid ended up being really irritating. There was also a point where there were nothing but references to existing horror films, and I didn't get what that had to do with that plot so I was bored rigid. There was a lot of build up for no reward. I won't be reading any more books by this author.

2.5 really. I can't seem to find a book that gets inside my head, makes me think and blows me away. I had high hopes for this one, but alas, it was mediocre at best.I hated the narrators. If it wasn't an annoying 8 year old, then it was an obnoxious OTT blogger (I'll not spoil), or the grown up 8 year old being interviewed by a writer through the most unnatural sounding dialogue.Lots of things happened in the book. There was the slow spiral of a girl into mental illness/possession, complete with swearing, rude comments, masturbation, green vomit, weird voices, peeing, pooping, possible levitation, injury, and death. There were parents tearing their hair out and turning to god for help. There was a camera crew that didn't seem terribly bothered by all the horrific goings on.I admit I speed read a lot of the blogger chapters because they were boring; sort of a recap of the events of the previous chapters with some interpretation of whether the events could have been faked or comparing them to movies and books about possession. The voice was typical 'read my blog now because it is great...look at all the great stuff I've got for you!!!!'.There was supposedly a twist at the end, but it wasn't really a twist because there were so many hints and ways of interpreting the possession scenes that made the reader expect it.To be fair, if I had never read a book or watched a movie about possession, or seen documentaries or those 'Most Haunted' things, then I would probably have been creeped out. But since I am an avid horror fan, I've been exposed to just about everything. That made this book very ho hum for me.My recommendation is to read it if you are just starting out on your horror journey, but if you are an old hand, you will most likely be disappointed.

A Head Full of Ghosts sees an adolescent girl possessed by a Demon and her family struggling to in turn ignore, understand and then profit from her terrifying and bizarre behaviour by inviting a reality TV crew into their home to record the possession. Told through the experiences of the youngest sister who adores her older sibling, the book trips between her childhood when the possession was happening and her later life when we learn that she is alone and finally willing to talk about the awful and widely witnessed horrors that have became the stuff of folklore. Is it real, or is it a sinister attempt to make money? It depends on your perspective but I'm thrilled to have discovered Paul Tremblay and, as a horror buff, it's great to have someone who writes wonderful characters and intelligent narrative whilst constantly tempting you to question the veracity of the storyline. In fact, together with the other novel I have read of his - Disappearance at Devil's Rock - I'd say this book falls into quite an original category by leaving you wondering if the subject matter really is paranormal - or simply ordinary people behaving abnormally. There's a fantastic twist at the end of the story which was an out-loud "Oh my God!" moment for me and demonstrated that even though Paul Tremblay had more than earned his spurs in my eyes had the novel ended how I was expecting it to - to add another turn was more than great value for money. Read this book whether you're a horror fan or a lover of whodunnits - it will satisfy both!