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A review by ojtheviking
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
5.0
If you want an example of a genuine page-turner, look no further, because this book is it. I've literally spent an entire day reading this book! I technically announced on my Instagram the day before that I was starting on it, but I ended up reading just one and a half chapters before falling asleep, so I started over when I woke back up, and could not put it down.
With this being my fourth experience reading Paul Tremblay, there's no doubt whatsoever that A Head Full of Ghosts is hereby my favorite book of his so far, and it's also the book that truly sealed the deal for me as to whether I'm a genuine fan of Tremblay or not – I most certainly am!
This story is absolutely fantastic from start to finish, a delicious mix between a psychological thriller and horror, building suspense in ways that just crawl under your skin and blindside you with twists and surprises. The main vibe of the plot feels as if Tremblay wanted to create a modern-day retelling of The Exorcist, with some Lovecraftian flavor sprinkled on top, but with enough ambiguity to keep you guessing, especially with these interjections along the way, of some blogger that is ruthlessly picking apart the alleged events and veritably claiming that they were fake.
It was especially when I saw a mention of The Exorcism of Emily Rose that I immediately understood what he was going for. But the brilliant thing is that you still end up going back and forth along the way between believing one thing then another. There are several things that make you question what to believe, how reliable the narration is, who is lying to whom, if there actually was a possession and if so who was really possessed, and so forth. I'd even say that by the time you reach the end, you can take away from it what you will, whether this really was a supernatural horror story, or a case of severe mental illness.
In addition to this being a wonderful idea, it's also incredibly well-written. I love how Tremblay describes things. The metaphors are very poetic and accurate. Some of his other stories that I've read so far have had a fair share of humor in them, but there's much less of that here. This novel has a much bleaker tone, but it fits the story perfectly, and joking around with it too much would have lessened the impact. Tremblay wrote this one with the intention to scare you, and he succeeds. Some parts are downright disturbing, not in terms of gore, but harrowing circumstances that are like waking nightmares.
I already know that no matter how many more books I read for the rest of 2023, A Head Full of Ghosts is guaranteed to be among my Top 10 reads this year, possibly even Top 5. Fully recommended – find a copy and read it NOW!
With this being my fourth experience reading Paul Tremblay, there's no doubt whatsoever that A Head Full of Ghosts is hereby my favorite book of his so far, and it's also the book that truly sealed the deal for me as to whether I'm a genuine fan of Tremblay or not – I most certainly am!
This story is absolutely fantastic from start to finish, a delicious mix between a psychological thriller and horror, building suspense in ways that just crawl under your skin and blindside you with twists and surprises. The main vibe of the plot feels as if Tremblay wanted to create a modern-day retelling of The Exorcist, with some Lovecraftian flavor sprinkled on top, but with enough ambiguity to keep you guessing, especially with these interjections along the way, of some blogger that is ruthlessly picking apart the alleged events and veritably claiming that they were fake.
It was especially when I saw a mention of The Exorcism of Emily Rose that I immediately understood what he was going for. But the brilliant thing is that you still end up going back and forth along the way between believing one thing then another. There are several things that make you question what to believe, how reliable the narration is, who is lying to whom, if there actually was a possession and if so who was really possessed, and so forth. I'd even say that by the time you reach the end, you can take away from it what you will, whether this really was a supernatural horror story, or a case of severe mental illness.
In addition to this being a wonderful idea, it's also incredibly well-written. I love how Tremblay describes things. The metaphors are very poetic and accurate. Some of his other stories that I've read so far have had a fair share of humor in them, but there's much less of that here. This novel has a much bleaker tone, but it fits the story perfectly, and joking around with it too much would have lessened the impact. Tremblay wrote this one with the intention to scare you, and he succeeds. Some parts are downright disturbing, not in terms of gore, but harrowing circumstances that are like waking nightmares.
I already know that no matter how many more books I read for the rest of 2023, A Head Full of Ghosts is guaranteed to be among my Top 10 reads this year, possibly even Top 5. Fully recommended – find a copy and read it NOW!