Name: Olga V's review of A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Item: A Head Full of Ghosts
Rating: 4
Author: Olga V

Paul Tremblay

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend. Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface - and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.

A Head Full of Ghosts

Venessa Johnstone

A gothic story with winks to many classic stories. An easy and entertaining read.

Olga V

WINNER OF THE 2015 BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL A chilling thriller that brilliantly blends psychological suspense and supernatural horror, reminiscent of Stephen King's The Shining, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight. With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend. Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.

A Novel

Patrick Book

If I had hair, it would have been shocked BONE WHITE!

Ryan Mateyk

One day late, but this was a nice, creepy little story for Halloween. The ending was totally unexpected and I loved it.

tori 👻

rakshu

i don’t know what to think. i just want to hug merry and never let go

Mae Erceg

I enjoyed this book a little bit but it just was not the book for me. There was an ok plot, some good horrific scenes, and I liked the main character but every one else sucked and most of the book is forgettable. I also didn’t care much for the ending. I’m glad I read it because it was on my anxious tbr list for a while but I doubt I’ll ever make the time read it again. 2.5/5 stars and would only really recommend for the one graphic gore scene if you’re into that kinda stuff.

Krystyna 

This book was a good read. I liked it but it wasn't the best book I have read. It was interesting and sometimes thoroughly creepy. The ending was probably the best ending that could have happened; it completely shocked me. It is tragic and emotional. I couldn't imagine dealing with all of the circumstances the main character and other family members had to go through. The ending just leaves the reader thinking and pondering on the entire story. This would be a great book choice for a book club or buddy read. It can stir up so many conversations and opinions. It wasn't scary in the way that I was expecting. If you are just getting into horror books this would be a good choice. If you want a creepy book that doesn't terrify you or give you nightmares this would be a good selection. This book could appeal to a wide variety of readers. I debated between a 3 or 4 star rating. I decided on a 3 star rating but I just finished it late last night so I may bump it up to a 4 star...we will see.

Surprises abound in this Paul Tremblay book! Is it a possession or not, and you will be continually revited, engaged, and surprised!

Patty Pforte

Ryan LaFerney

A Head Full of Ghosts deserves the positive press it has received over the past few years. A Head Full of Ghosts is a scary, sad, sweet, funny, and gross story about a young girl named Merry witnessing her family's spiral into madness. You see Merry's family is dealing with the possible demonic possession of her sister Marjorie and their choice to not only perform an exorcism but to film it for a reality show. Merry is our narrator and her accounts switch between adult Merry's interviews with a bestselling writer and her own blog posts deconstructing the TV show she was a part of. Merry's interviews morph into childlike remembrances of growing up allowing us to see the events of the book through a child's eye. Though these "flashbacks" (if you will) we get a glimpse into Merry's family's dysfunction, her sister's possible possession, and her own trauma. 

Honestly, this is chilling entertainment at its finest but like the best horror (think Shirley Jackson or William Peter Blatty) this is ultimately a story about the human condition. It's entertaining, chilling, funny, and disturbing yes, but also revealing. This is psychological horror after all with a tinge of social criticism. As a tale of perception and possible possession, A Head Full of Ghosts asks a lot of different yet difficult questions regarding the nature of physiological manipulation, religious fanaticism and more. This novel also looks at the way mass media acts as a form of voyeurism - reality TV in particular is guilty of this. While you be wondering what's up with Merry's sister (is a demon really inside her? Or is she mental ill)...that's not really what this book is about. The book is really about the breakdown of a family, a scathing critique of reality TV culture, and an analysis of how desperation and greed can combine to create a horror far more terrifying than the supernatural. In that sense, this is more Shirley Jackson than William Peter Blatty. 

A Head Full of Ghost is riveting, and Merry makes for a delightful narrator, therefore it's a quick read. The way religion is handled in the book is a little problematic and it's my only complaint (for instance, If I were Father Wanderly I would not be suggesting an exorcism for Merry's sister but rather medical treatment as there wasn't great evidence for an exorcism but ya know, a priest has got side hustle going and Tremblay has to deliver us, dear readers, an exorcism). An exorcism is delivered but it's not going to go as planned. And the ending is completely unexpected and sad. It's in fact, utterly heartbreaking. While this is an excellent book, I do not recommend reading this if you're depressed. 

Overall, A Head Full of Ghosts is a wonderful novel that toys with the conventions of supernatural and psychological storytelling. For those brave enough, you're in for a treat.

Janice Hopper

True confession time: I listened to this because it was on a list of books that "scared Stephen King." O.o Honestly, it was the only one on that list that seemed interesting to me. And it was available in unlimited audio on Scribd, so I bit.

Welcome to the world of the unreliable narrator. I'm STILL not sure exactly what to believe at the end of the novel. Was Marjorie having a schizophrenic breakdown, or was she possessed by a demon? How many shenanigans really WERE going on with the TV company that was filming the story of her "possession and exorcism?" Etc, etc.

The author frames the story first as an interview with a woman who planned to write a book about the whole thing. That story is intercut with the memories of Meredith, the observer of what happened. And intercut with all THAT is a series of articles written by a blogger (who is actually Meredith herself) writing a critique of the series under the aegis of a horror reviewer for Fangoria. 

I listened to it on audio. This is one of those books where a good narrator makes the book. She voiced 8 year old Meredith one way, and grown-up Meredith another way, and the smart, snarky blogger another way. She also handled some of the vocal effects suggested by the action pretty well too.

I found the book a bit disturbing, but not really scary. It got kinda suspenseful at one point, and once I thought "Whoa, shit just got real." Then I found out a little later that uh no, maybe shit DIDN'T just get real. Kinda crazy-making, but interesting. I listened pretty much straight through, with small breaks to finish another book I was reading. Because I can't handle too much suspense. I gotta break it up a bit. :)

Creepy and interesting, a bit disturbing. I liked it.

Anna Troughton 

I would really give this a 3.75 stars. Throughout the book I was pretty certain I would rate it a solid 3 stars because it was entertaining but I just wasn't very keen on one of the narrations perspective. I felt like it wasn't very necessary to the story. That being said I did like how it felt you questioning whether the events were paranormal or not. The twist at the end also surprised me and left me rather chilled which is what pushed the rating up higher for me!

a bit early on in the book, there’s a line that’s like: 

if [marjorie] was possessed by anything other than faulty brain chemistry and/or dna, i like to imagine her as being possessed by the vast, awesome and awful monster that is popular culture. possessed by the culture of ideas!

 and i thought that was a promising checkpoint for where we were going. it was a good setup, maybe even a little too good, bc now that i’ve finished it i’m just surly about how it had all these balls up in the air—the voyeurism ingrained in reality show culture, the vast array of possession/exorcism narratives in nearly every type of media, the mental health point that you have to address in these situations, the ever-looming presence of catholicism and faith in possession stories, not to mention the backdrop of economic recession and suburban life, all of these intersecting in a sort of multimedia format i’d usually love—and it failed to catch any of it. you almost kind of want to take all the other balls and leave them with only one to pass from hand to hand if that means they’ll definitely be able to catch it. 

this felt like a novel of premises, and also a novel that liked to listen to itself talk, and unfortunately that leaves you with a novel that asks you to be patient until it gives you a treat, only for you to find that what it defines as a treat is not at all what you consider one. there’s a certain novelty to the self-awareness it presents, this meta-ness to how it tells its own narrative, and i guess if you’re just that sick of your usual possession stories, you might find this refreshing and be rewarded by the thrill of the ending. there’s merit in that, and in the questions and thought points this novel offers. but when it comes to stories that follow a long line of traditions to subvert or reflect on or self-criticize about, there’s an amount of being meta that goes so far you just end up with… some guy. some dude. some story. that talks a lot. in language that on one hand is prose that occasionally sounds pinpoint and natural for a younger narrator but on the other is dialogue that doesn’t sound natural at all. and the blog posts, the banter, the body language—it’s like how dialogue in 

 is really only charming in the context of the show and will probably be unmanageable in real life 

it’s just disappointing finishing a book and wondering what we all clocked in for the entire time, including the author. felt a lot like this novel wrote itself in search of a point to it existing, and granted, whatever it sought out to do, it seemed to try its best to pursue. but sometimes the pursuit is the folly, is the conceit, and it doesn’t leave a good aftertaste in a way that has nothing to do with the horror actually happening in the narrative. especially when it somehow managed to cheapen the elements that i’m sure it wanted to defend, which is a more personal kind of disappointing. i’d joked lightly about what a book this was to pick up while weathering my first psychotic symptoms during a manic episode in probably years—but i mean. multiple people considered “okay, this book explores a tiny bit of how stories of possession can very well be someone’s terrible psychotic break” and still greenlit 

 as one of the points of contention? it’s beside the point now but it’s still baffling that this part was left open-ended in a way meant to be received as eerie, and in a way that lent itself eventually to an ending that’s meant to further unsettle. bc. it kind of simply nailed the coffin shut.

there are also so many ways to do catholicism or any kind of religious devotion well in horror; i’m thinking especially of matt draper’s video essay on faith in the original 

, which acknowledges that the film must be funny to us now but would have been unsettling at the time it was released for reasons that weren’t just about the possession. sometimes it’s about believing in things that can’t save you, or being forgotten by the thing that was your saviour once. and there’s so many avenues that would have been available to this novel, about how yes, it’s very likely the most crucial culprit in all this ~horror is pop culture, and money is a small god or whatever, but the way all of it was handled was just. draining in the end.

a bit early on in the book, there’s a line that’s like: if [marjorie] was possessed by anything other than faulty brain chemistry and/or dna, i like to imagine her as being possessed by the vast, awesome and awful monster that is popular culture. possessed by the culture of ideas! and i thought that was a promising checkpoint for where we were going. it was a good setup, maybe even a little too good, bc now that i’ve finished it i’m just surly about how it had all these balls up in the air—the voyeurism ingrained in reality show culture, the vast array of possession/exorcism narratives in nearly every type of media, the mental health point that you have to address in these situations, the ever-looming presence of catholicism and faith in possession stories, not to mention the backdrop of economic recession and suburban life, all of these intersecting in a sort of multimedia format i’d usually love—and it failed to catch any of it. you almost kind of want to take all the other balls and leave them with only one to pass from hand to hand if that means they’ll definitely be able to catch it. 

this felt like a novel of premises, and also a novel that liked to listen to itself talk, and unfortunately that leaves you with a novel that asks you to be patient until it gives you a treat, only for you to find that what it defines as a treat is not at all what you consider one. there’s a certain novelty to the self-awareness it presents, this meta-ness to how it tells its own narrative, and i guess if you’re just that sick of your usual possession stories, you might find this refreshing and be rewarded by the thrill of the ending. there’s merit in that, and in the questions and thought points this novel offers. but when it comes to stories that follow a long line of traditions to subvert or reflect on or self-criticize about, there’s an amount of being meta that goes so far you just end up with… some guy. some dude. some story. that talks a lot. in language that on one hand is prose that occasionally sounds pinpoint and natural for a younger narrator but on the other is dialogue that doesn’t sound natural at all. and the blog posts, the banter, the body language—it’s like how dialogue in gilmore girls is really only charming in the context of the show and will probably be unmanageable in real life 

it’s just disappointing finishing a book and wondering what we all clocked in for the entire time, including the author. felt a lot like this novel wrote itself in search of a point to it existing, and granted, whatever it sought out to do, it seemed to try its best to pursue. but sometimes the pursuit is the folly, is the conceit, and it doesn’t leave a good aftertaste in a way that has nothing to do with the horror actually happening in the narrative. especially when it somehow managed to cheapen the elements that i’m sure it wanted to defend, which is a more personal kind of disappointing. i’d joked lightly about what a book this was to pick up while weathering my first psychotic symptoms during a manic episode in probably years—but i mean. multiple people considered “okay, this book explores a tiny bit of how stories of possession can very well be someone’s terrible psychotic break” and still greenlit Is It Possession Or Is It Psychosis as one of the points of contention? it’s beside the point now but it’s still baffling that this part was left open-ended in a way meant to be received as eerie, and in a way that lent itself eventually to an ending that’s meant to further unsettle. bc. it kind of simply nailed the coffin shut.

there are also so many ways to do catholicism or any kind of religious devotion well in horror; i’m thinking especially of matt draper’s video essay on faith in the original exorcist, which acknowledges that the film must be funny to us now but would have been unsettling at the time it was released for reasons that weren’t just about the possession. sometimes it’s about believing in things that can’t save you, or being forgotten by the thing that was your saviour once. and there’s so many avenues that would have been available to this novel, about how yes, it’s very likely the most crucial culprit in all this ~horror is pop culture, and money is a small god or whatever, but the way all of it was handled was just. draining in the end.

Ewan

A horror book about horror. Very meta, which could put many people off. Personally the Shirley Jackson reverence pulled me in from the off. (Merry the cat!!). Clever and occasionally scary

Molly

This is now one of my all time favorite books. I recommend this to everyone.

alina s

Catarina Silva

4.5 stars
I loved this book! Sometimes I was a bit confused with what was happening in the audiobook since it switched to the blog posts kind of abruptly, but overall I loved the story. And the ending, did not see that one coming

Maggie Gordon

For Halloween this year, I revisited my favourite horror novel of all time: A Head Full of Ghosts. The story is told in three ways: a series of conversations between our protagonist, Merry, with a writer who wants to publish a book about what happened in Merry's youth; memories from Merry, told as if she was the eight year old that she once was; and blog entries from a horror fiction fan, analysing "The Possession", the reality TV show that Merry's family was the focus of. It's an interesting way of conveying this information, and each format adds to the tension of the story, and helps readers dig into Merry's head. 

When she was eight years old, Merry's sister Marjorie started to change. Merry didn't notice at first. Marjorie was a teenager after all, but when Marjorie starts messing up story time, telling awful tales of death and destruction, Merry's ignorance over her sister's troubles abruptly ends. Her sister is sick, but with what? What is going on that is making her sister act so crazy and making her parents so upset. 

The rest of the tale is about a family trying to cope with their child's sudden onset of traumatic mental illness while also coping with economic instability and familial discord. Marjorie has been going to the doctor, but her father feels that conventional treatments aren't doing enough. After losing his job and being unemployed for over a year, he finds comfort in the Catholic church, so he brings his daughter there in hopes that they can figure out what is wrong with her. The priest believes she is possessed, and given the family's rapidly dwindling finances, the girls' father bullies his wife into accepting not only intervention from religions figures in the form of an exorcism, but to allowing it to be filmed by a television crew. Of course, exploitatively filming an exceptionally sick teenage girl as she is tormented by patriarchal sessions with a priest does not actually help her get well. The reality tv show ends explosively, yet it resolves nothing for the poor family. 

A Head Full of Ghosts makes readers constantly question whether the strange occurrences in the book are supernatural or the result of terrible choices on the part of the adults in control of the situation. While I tend towards believing that the true evil in this scenario was caused by ordinary people, there are moments of doubt, perhaps just because I do not want to believe that human beings could be so terrible. 

The ending of this book is what will stick in readers' heads for years to come. While the trauma of Marjorie's descent into illness is terrible to behold, her attempt to regain control over her life is far more horrifying than anything else in the novel. (view spoiler)[In the last chapter of the book, Merry reveals that Marjorie tricked her into poisoning the entire family. Like the interplay between supernatural and ordinary, the book also positions the father as a figure who could simply be a worried and overwhelmed parent to something far more sinister. Marjorie is convinced that he is going to kill the entire family, so she tells Merry that they must flee. However, Marjorie eats the poisoned food as well, and Merry watches her family die, keeping that secret well into her adulthood. It's a chilling end to the book, and it makes you reconsider all that you have read before. You remember that 8 year old Merry is narrated by adult Merry, and that adult Merry has every reason to want to project a certain image. (hide spoiler)]

There's been few other horror stories that have managed to tackle such a traditional topic so seamlessly in a contemporary setting. A Head Full of Ghosts is a smart and critical exploration of the horror genre that directly addresses all the horrible gender implications of previous stories in the genre while still delivering a frighteningly terrible novel. 

******************************************************************************

Originally read: November 25, 2015
Oh god... oh god... OH GOD. A Head Full of Ghosts is a terrifying, dark, and so utterly fantastic horror novel that says a lot of fascinating things about society. I am so very happy that I decided to go through the GoodReads awards selections because this was one of my favourite reads all year. 

A Head Full of Ghosts is about a family falling apart. Dad lost his job, money is tight, and older sister Majorie is suddenly plagued by severe mental health problems. Or are they health problems? Father dearest, as a result of the stress of his life shifting so dramatically, turns to religion and decides that his little girl is possessed by a demon and must be exorcised. Given that the family is looking bankruptcy in the face, mom agrees that dad can bring in some Catholic priests and a reality TV crew to document the experience of trying to "cure" Majorie. And, unsurprisingly, the story is horrifying. 

So why is this such a successful book? Horror novels feature both dread and horror. Throughout the story, the discomfort and feelings of fear should slowly build and be ever present throughout the narrative. Readers should be unsettled, and this is definitely true of A Head Full of Ghosts. The story is told to us by Merry, as she tries to remember the situation from her perspective as an eight year old (but with the hindsight and wisdom of her older self). We know that something is wrong, but young Merry was just not in the right space to actually know what or comprehend the terrible things that were happening to her family. But you do get the sense of things getting worse. Of something horrible building up.

And then there's the moment of horror. The part of the book that makes you gasp at something terrible, almost unthinkable. The moment of horror at the end of A Head Full of Ghosts is gut wrenching, and forces readers to reframe previous conceptions about what happened. It's shocking, but organically so. The horror at the end of the book truly cements in the reader's mind how scary and terrible the events of this book really were. 

So what was the book really about? It provides an interesting and chilling commentary on the struggles of middle class families in recent years. Of how gender relations are changing, and how some men simply cannot handle these shifts and reach back to "better" times when the patriarch was responsible for the well-being of his family. It speaks about mental health and the dangerous ways that society tries to deny and control what they do not understand. It illustrates the strange world of reality television that blends truth and fiction, and the damage this can cause to the people involved and the society that views these narratives. It's about a lot of things, and it's hard to tell exactly what, in the end happened, making it a delightfully complex, open-ended, and truly terrifying novel.

Celeste Richardson

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

I almost always expect more of the horror genre, outside of Stephen King, than it tends to deliver. While I enjoyed this book, I have to say that I was expecting more commitment. I find the whole “is it possession or just mental illness” thing to be a tired, overdone plot line. While Tremblay did it very well, and added in some fresh ideas with the reality show sub plot and the presence of blog entries, I just hoped for more. I want to read a possession story (besides the OG Exorcist) that really commits to the possession and doesn’t leave the reader wandering if the possessed was just mentally ill the entire time.

My favorite sections of this book were hands down the blog posts. Tremblay captured the voice of a snarky but well informed blogger impeccably. I love how Karen took the show apart scene by scene, adding in her own theories and research into the mix. In my opinion, her voice to be the freshest element of the entire book. If The Last Final Girl was a real blog, I would definitely give it a follow.

There are a lot of themes in this book: from desperation felt so often by families straddling the line of poverty, to what people will do for their fifteen minutes of fame; from how mental illness can change a family, to the fine line between religious zeal and fanaticism; from the relationship between family members and how those ties are strained and broken by stress, to how one can subconsciously alter one’s memories to protect oneself and what those alterations can cause over the course of one’s life. I found all of these elements interesting, but was never able to form a deep enough connection to the cast of characters to really care what they were going through. Tremblay straddled the line between possession and mental illness with great aplomb, but in the end seemed unable to deliver enough of either to be convincing. 

I wanted to make this a full review, but I just don’t have all that much to say. I liked it, but didn’t love it. It was well written, but failed to grip me. I don’t expect it to be a story that sticks with me.

ben wolfson

daisy

Lauren Karch

Ever covered your eyes while watching a spooky flick, only to have your couch-mate loudly describe the terrifying scenes you're missing? About 30 percent of this novel is spent describing Paranormal-Activity-Two-esque found footage scenes - and it totally works.

The story is told from the POV of Meredith, a now-grown writer who waa eight years old when her sister's alleged possession made her family the topic of a popular reality show. Meredith tells the story through two mediums: an ongoing interview with another writer and a horror blog (written anonymously so that her readers respect her voice rather than her fame, of course). In the interview, Meredith tells the tale of the supposed possession from her recollections; in the blog, she describes the TV show as a devoted horror fan. Was her sister truly inhabited by something supernatural - or by a mental illness and a serious devotion to BloodyDisgusting and horror Reddits?

As an aside: Buy Audible version, and you will become just a tad annoyed with Meredith's sassy blog voice. I don't blame the narrator or the author; I blame real-life sassy lit blogs.

Emir Andrés Ibañez

Una historia sobre una adolescente poseída por fuerzas demoníacas y un reality show mostrando a la familia como atraviesa por todo el proceso? Bueno, por supuesto que lo iba a leer. Y me encantó! Es tan llevadero y tan atrapante que te lo lees en un par de sentadas. Es una historia más para leer por el puro gusto de asustarte pero aún así tiene lo suyo. Tiene unos personajes sólidos y una crítica social que no esperaba encontrar. Lo disfruté bastante y ahora quiero leer más del autor.

Patti Reinheimer

Great premise, readable prose, killer ending.

Kristina Masone

I think my favourite thing about this book is how absolutely polarizing this book is amongst it's readers. Whenever I see conversations about it, I always see people so convinced of a specific outcome, that others do not agree with. 

I can't wait to read more from this author.

Venessa Johnstone &
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

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