A Head Full Of Ghosts (Paul Tremblay)

A Head Full of Ghosts

I am a Polygamist when it comes to books. I cannot read just one at a time. I start one, and then it triggers something in my brain that I want to read more about, so I find one to scratch that itch and read them both at the same time. My record this year is 4 at one time, although I don't know that that is really something to brag about. So, when Halloween rolled around yesterday, I just couldn't sit still with the "epic family drama" I had been trudging through, I had to find a really good "creep the crap out of you, I wish I had left the light on, damnit now I can't go to sleep because I have to finish this" kind of book. And at that moment of need, the Kindle app swooped in to help me out and let me know that a book I have been DYINGGGGGG to read for a while now was on sale ($1.99 ebooks are going to put me in a poor house, I swear to God.) I JUMPED at the chance and started reading it right then. And almost called out of work later that day to keep reading it.

Then stayed up WAYYY too late trying to finish it, until finally my brain screamed "YOUR ALARM IS GOING TO GO OFF IN FIVE HOURS GO. THE FUCK. TO SLEEP!" And so I put it down. (Then spent probably another hour thinking about it and trying to figure out what was going on and what was going to happen next.) When I FINALLY got home from work today I was able to immediately scoop up my Kindle and devour the rest of the book.

I. Love. It.

Synopsis: the book centers around the possession (or non possession?) of Marjorie, a teenage girl who might be acting possessed, or might be acting like a teenage girl, it is literally the hardest determination any and every parent has ever had to make. Twist though, the family is in financial ruin at the beginning of the story, so they decide to use Marjorie's need for an exorcism (psychtropic drugs?) to save themselves and sign on to do a reality show about the process. The key to this being an awesome story, though? Is the fact that it is told from the perspective of the younger sister. At first this might sound like no big deal, but think about it: this is literally the purest discussion of dear Marjorie's problem that you're ever going to get. This child doesn't know what possession is; she doesn't know what an exorcism does; she has no filter over her eyes skewing her impressions of what is going on except that she loves her sister dearly. She doesn't need there to be a demon inside her sister in order to reaffirm her faith, just like she doesn't need her to spike a fever and reveal a rare disease causing a schizophrenic break from reality just because she needs medical "proof" of what is wrong. All she knows, is that her sister isn't acting the way she used to, and the things she's doing are alarming and shocking. She is the least biased observer in Marjorie's life, and because of that we get to make up our minds at each instance what we think is going on.

If you like horror, suspense, thrillers, or just well written books- READ THIS! (It's still on sale as of the writing of this post!)

The Final Tally

The Book
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

The Writing
🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

Readability
🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️

Five out of five all around. Read. The damn. Book.