A Head Full of Ghosts - Paul Tremblay
I don't even know where to begin with this book. The sickening and terrifying imagery? The infuriating father figure? The depressing mother? The poor, terrified, scared little girl who's watching her sister go through the most painful and terrifying experience of her life? Or maybe I'll start at the end, and express how I had to put the book down and just stare into the darkness of my room and wonder what I just read.
Is Marjorie sick, or possessed? One can't tell as the book begins, we don't know if her terrifying actions are that of mental illness of possession. See, as a mentally ill person myself (though, thankfully not to this extent) and as someone who has been around mental illness all his life, I can believe these are the actions of a severely ill person. It's not outside the realm of reality for Marjorie to act this way. But her, in all her evil actions and sickness, is not the character I hate the most. That award goes to the father. I won't spoil why, but I can tell you, you'll want to throttle him as much as I did by the end of it. There's a difference between using religion as a crutch, and using it as a spiritual guide, I'll let you decide which way this story tilts. Religion can be a wonderful experience, bringing you closer to humble, calm emotions and a way to love those around you. Or, you know, it can turn you into a demonic, sadistic person who would put the "word of God" before the family he apparently blessed you with. Merry, our narrator is an incredible character you can emphasize with. You cheer for her, you cry with her, and your heart pours for her. You want to reach into the pages, tear her out of them and help her. But all you can do is watch her story unfold.
Now, this all sounds like a five star review so far. My lack of a single star comes from the "blog" chapters. I just...didn't see much of a point. Yes they provided some insight to the situation at hand, but that wasn't anything we couldn't have gotten from a first person narrator. They took me out of the "realm of fear" and poured me into confusion. I felt sort of cheated by not feeling unnerved, and having to trudge through a blog post that had way too much of a happy camper voice. Especially when these chapters were shoe-horned in right after Marjorie did something so disturbing I had to re-read it twice to really figure out what the heck just happened. The blog can be fun, insightful, and give us a look into a certain characters brain, but it just didn't fit right in the book for me.
So, four solid stars out of five for "A Head Full of Ghosts". An incredibly well written, terrifying book, but not without a few flaws.
I don't even know where to begin with this book. The sickening and terrifying imagery? The infuriating father figure? The depressing mother? The poor, terrified, scared little girl who's watching her sister go through the most painful and terrifying experience of her life? Or maybe I'll start at the end, and express how I had to put the book down and just stare into the darkness of my room and wonder what I just read.
Is Marjorie sick, or possessed? One can't tell as the book begins, we don't know if her terrifying actions are that of mental illness of possession. See, as a mentally ill person myself (though, thankfully not to this extent) and as someone who has been around mental illness all his life, I can believe these are the actions of a severely ill person. It's not outside the realm of reality for Marjorie to act this way. But her, in all her evil actions and sickness, is not the character I hate the most. That award goes to the father. I won't spoil why, but I can tell you, you'll want to throttle him as much as I did by the end of it. There's a difference between using religion as a crutch, and using it as a spiritual guide, I'll let you decide which way this story tilts. Religion can be a wonderful experience, bringing you closer to humble, calm emotions and a way to love those around you. Or, you know, it can turn you into a demonic, sadistic person who would put the "word of God" before the family he apparently blessed you with. Merry, our narrator is an incredible character you can emphasize with. You cheer for her, you cry with her, and your heart pours for her. You want to reach into the pages, tear her out of them and help her. But all you can do is watch her story unfold.
Now, this all sounds like a five star review so far. My lack of a single star comes from the "blog" chapters. I just...didn't see much of a point. Yes they provided some insight to the situation at hand, but that wasn't anything we couldn't have gotten from a first person narrator. They took me out of the "realm of fear" and poured me into confusion. I felt sort of cheated by not feeling unnerved, and having to trudge through a blog post that had way too much of a happy camper voice. Especially when these chapters were shoe-horned in right after Marjorie did something so disturbing I had to re-read it twice to really figure out what the heck just happened. The blog can be fun, insightful, and give us a look into a certain characters brain, but it just didn't fit right in the book for me.
So, four solid stars out of five for "A Head Full of Ghosts". An incredibly well written, terrifying book, but not without a few flaws.
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