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A Head Full of Ghosts

Paul Tremblay

Discussion: SOLVED: Adult Fiction

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SOLVED: Adult Fiction

SOLVED. Litrpg, Portal Fantasy. Time travel through the portal. Veteran mc, portal behind a sealed double brick wall in the basement.
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SOLVED. Adult Lighthearted Detective series, 10+ books. Young, easygoing male Sleuth living with Lawyer Dad in the U.S. Published around 1990s-2000s?
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What Members Thought

Jan 07, 2015 karen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: from-publisher-or-author

paul tremblay interviews me, or "me" here:

https://thelittlesleep.wordpress.com/...

this book is about a fourteen-year-old girl named marjorie, her eight-year-old sister merry, and the events leading up to marjorie's exorcism. your attention, i have it, yes? this is both a horror novel and a psychological suspense novel, but then it goes the extra step into self-referential metafiction in a way that is natural and not gimmicky-annoying, probably because that part involves a delightful character n ...more

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Apr 14, 2017 Philip rated it liked it

The afternoon of the day I started reading this book I got a splinter, and it was a bad one. It was in my hand, and it was really bugging me. It was more... toothpick size than splinter size. And it was in deep. The weird part about it was it looked like a mini 4x4 piece of lumber - it was squared off like that.

I was worried about pulling it out, I didn't want to make it worse, or have it break off in my hand. I was sitting at Wendy's (which I never go to) with some friends and they encouraged m ...more

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Oct 17, 2016 Kate rated it really liked it

Shelves: age-adult, horror, 2016

This is the story of a family besieged by demons... or is it? Meredith, known as Merry when she was younger, tells the story of how her older sister Marjorie was possessed when they were children - a story shown on TV as part of a reality show called "The Possession." The story shown in "The Possession" is dismantled frame by frame as a blogger sets about dissecting both what made the show so frightening and what made it so obviously fake. Was it fake? Was Marjorie pretending the whole time? Or ...more

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Dec 10, 2015 Melinda Worfolk rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-2019, fiction

4.5 stars.

Definitely a page-turner. I haven't read a book so quickly in ages.

I liked the book's structure (present day Merry recounting present day interview; present day Merry recalling events from 15 years ago; horror blogger "Karen" reviewing the reality TV show--and repeat). I also liked Merry's narrative voice and her recounting of past events, and the blog entries. The only bit that seemed clunky was the dialogue between Merry and present-day interviewer Rachel...I found these parts oddly ...more

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Jul 28, 2021 emily rated it liked it

Shelves: family-drama, horror, thrillers-and-suspense, demons-possession-paranormal, 2021, now-and-then

Head Full Of Ghosts is an interesting book. There are three parts that the narrative cycles between-- the fifteen-years-ago narrative of Marjorie's possession and the TV show that chronicled it, the present-day narrative of Merry telling that story to a writer, and Merry's pseudonymic blog in which she reviews and deconstructs the TV show. I really liked this structure, even if the plot elements in the book were more hit-or-miss for me.

The commentary on reality TV was the least effective to me-- Head Full Of Ghosts is an interesting book. There are three parts that the narrative cycles between-- the fifteen-years-ago narrative of Marjorie's possession and the TV show that chronicled it, the present-day narrative of Merry telling that story to a writer, and Merry's pseudonymic blog in which she reviews and deconstructs the TV show. I really liked this structure, even if the plot elements in the book were more hit-or-miss for me.

The commentary on reality TV was the least effective to me-- I can't help comparing it to the first Hunger Games book, which calls out the problematic aspects of reality TV in a brutal and unflinching way, whereas the TV show angle here felt more like a reason for the now-and-then structure of the book than a real plot point. Merry is too young during the filming to have a nuanced experience of or reaction to being filmed all the time, so her accounts of the family's interactions with the crew also lack nuance. Sometimes it just felt like the TV crew was an excuse to have more characters in the story than just the family.

The possession story works better. Mostly it's a fun look at haunting / exorcism tropes in our media-- a few things pulled right out of The Exorcist and other horror movies, which then get called out for being stereotypes by Merry's blog. However, a lot of its effect was diminished for me by the ending "twist", if you can call it that. The whole time I was reading I thought I was reading a book about a family dissolving under coinciding forms of pressure, with their teenage daughter's mental health struggles as the catalyst. But (view spoiler)

And lastly the story about, as I said, the family dissolving. This felt so real I wondered if the author had experienced something similar or had just really done his research about the decline of the middle class. Laid-off uptight dad finds religion, further alienates mom who's now shouldering 100% of the burden of the family's survival, mentally ill older daughter acts out, younger daughter struggles to understand it all and becomes the victim of everyone else's pain-- it felt familiar, but the TV show element took it from straight-up depressing drama to more of a mystery. How much of what happens to them is because of the show? Does Dad lean into the religion thing because it's the source of their family's income now? Can any of their interactions that are caught on film be considered genuine? That all really worked for me.

In spite of my questions and issues, I liked the book, but more than liking any of the characters or the plot I just really liked Tremblay's writing style. He really took me into each scene, even the blog posts-- I could picture the blog, like Tattle Crime from Hannibal, all lurid red and sensationalism. So while I only gave this one three stars, I feel like that was a me problem and not a him problem, and definitely plan on reading more of his work. ...more

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