The lives of the Barretts, a 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 halt 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, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show.Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, ...
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The lives of the Barretts, a 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 halt 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, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show.Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls the terrifying events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories begin to surface-and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed.
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Add this copy of A Head Full of Ghosts to cart. $7.06, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2022 by William Morrow & Company.
Add this copy of A Head Full of Ghosts to cart. $12.97, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2016 by William Morrow & Company.
A book full of questions, as I'm starting to realize is a trend with Tremblay's writing. A Head Full of Ghosts was more of a pretty entertaining mystery story than a horror. One that has you constantly trying to figure out what is actually going on with the Barrett family, until the extremely sad twist at the end. Even then you still don't really have the answer.
My main gripe was with the chapters solely composed of Merry's blog under her pseudonym in which she criticizes the tv series about her family, points out a lot of the tropes, problems with the filming tricks, etc. Etc. I found myself wondering each time "what does this actually add to this story?" I'm still at a loss for the answer, aside from her examination of the scenes as badly done further putting questions about Marjorie into the forefront. Some readers were able to relate to her ramblings, but I just found them a bit obnoxious, unnecessary, and patronizing. I found myself wishing we could get back into her recounting events with Rachel instead of droning on about underlying misogyny found in the TV series and other horror. I mean I understood her points, but they just didn't seem pertinent nor are they what I wanted out of this book. I get that there are a lot of these tropes in horror, stop talking about them please, and get back to actually trying to write a good horror.
Ah well. I liked this a lot better than Devil's Rock. This book also had a way more interesting ending, but overall, I didn't really ever find myself gripped by it. 3/5
