A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

3 Stars

I had been wanting to read this book ever since I knew it existed and was bought it for Christmas. I tuck straight into the book as soon as I could but I haven't been feeling up to reading lately and eventually managed to finish the book. 

The book is read through the character of Merry and flips between her child self and her adult self after the main events of the book. The child version of Merry lives at home with her parents and older sister Marjorie. The beginning of the book begins with an interview of Merry as an adult discussing some of what happened to her as an eight year old at home for a non-fiction book. The book then goes into Merry being an eight year old again and the beginnings of Marjorie's spiral downwards. Marjorie starts by seeing a doctor but is eventually visited by Father Wanderly who believes she is possessed. At some random point in the book, the events taking place at home are taken up by a TV channel and the events becomes the show 'The Possession'. The story also takes us to present day Merry where she is writing her blog about the TV show and her re-telling to an interviewer for a book. 

The synopsis of this book really drew me in. I couldn't wait to read this book so much. Although the overall possession idea is very common, the idea of the TV show part and switching to present day is what made me want to read this book. I wanted to this book to be a 5 star read so badly, but unfortunately it wasn't. 

So, the main things I liked about this book was the overall ideas of the book and how it could have went. The somewhat twist at the end and wondering whether Marjorie was possessed was also really well done. Now, the things I really didn't enjoy about this book. When reading the parts about Merry as a child, there was a lot to be missed about Marjorie that would have kept me more hooked in reading if the book was not from Merry's point of view. I also really did not enjoy the blog posts. It felt like a waste in recounting what happened, although I quite liked the interpretation to modern/horror culture it just felt like I was constantly rereading the plot which annoyed me. The characters weren't overall very interesting and most of them pretty much annoyed me. When reading from Merry's point of view at one point, the writing type completely changed as though older Merry was retelling that story rather than the story just being told in the past - how confusing and annoying! 

Overall, this could have been such a great book and I was so disappointed. I know some people really enjoyed this book and I have read some really good reviews. 

Happy reading :)