Reviews tagging 'Blood'

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

84 reviews

lucylou's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I think it’s overhyped- it’s not a bad book, but it was not for me. I didn’t like “Karen’s” chapters at all, as they didn’t sound like a woman could write them- very much a male author who doesn’t know how portray a young woman’s voice. The last 4 chapters seemed especially rushed, like the author had run out of steam and wanted to put in as many twists and f*cked up things as possible.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Blood, and Vomit

Moderate: Death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, and Alcohol

jkergan's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Blood, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Alcohol

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Body horror

smileysam's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I want to start off by saying I often see this book described as a super scary and disturbing horror novel (which was initially what brought me to reading it) and it’s not. To me, this novel is moreso sad and gut wrenching than scary. It’s less paranormal possession horror and more real life, mental illness, and family splitting ‘horror’. 

I will say, it felt real. I liked the story being told from an unreliable, naive narrator. It felt plausible, like it could happen to any one of us. I initially didn’t mind the blog entries - I did feel like they pulled me out of the story, but not necessarily in a bad way (not until the third one, anyway). I liked the supposed outsider POV and the foreshadowing we got from them.

I do wish, though, that the poisoning of the family was moreso alluded to than outright told to us in the third blog post. I feel like it could’ve create much more tension if it was brought up in Merry’s descriptions to begin with.

All in all, I would say the first 2 parts of this book were fantastic. Where it began to lose me was part 3. The pacing seemed to change and became too fast. Everything seemed to happen and more or less resolve instantly as it was brought up. I wish the third part could’ve maintained the same atmosphere and pacing and story telling that the other two had. I would say this book is worth a read, though. I did enjoy it, it just was not quite what I was expecting or hoping for. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Vomit, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

brookey8888's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I don’t know how I feel about this book. It was interesting and the way it was told was intriguing, but it kind of just made me sad. Also I’m pretty sure this is classified as horror, but there was maybe like one creepy part(that I skipped over because I do not need to read graphic details about a 14 year old masturbating). Honestly it was just depressing to read about these girls and the mental illness and honestly the annoying father(which is kind of the point, but I just didn’t really expect that). I also did not like the ending like it was just so anticlimactic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

james1star's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is the third book by Tremblay I’ve read and I will not be reading any more because once again this was just very meh. The story is told through the POV of Merry who is now twenty three as she’s talking with a reporter about the anniversary of a TV show airing that focused on her family. As she’s talking we’re transported back to Merry at age eleven and how her fourteen year old sister Marjorie starts to deal with a mental health illness (schizophrenia?) that is later thought to be the result of her being possessed. Their father consults the ‘expertise’ of a Father Wanderley who pushes for an exorcism. Media coverage of the family begins and so does a TV show leading up to Marjorie’s exorcism. The family deal with financial issues and there’s a possibility Marjorie is faking it but we don’t really know. 

The more horror-ish elements of the book were alright I’d say, it’s more psychological and a lot of Marjorie’s actions were typical of the ‘possessed’ person which were rather gross and unpleasant to read. It did feel a little like a rip-off of the film ‘The Exorcist’ at times and just generally wasn’t the most intriguing read. Much of the story rests on the idea of what is and isn’t the truth and whilst I was interested at the start, I didn’t really care as the book developed and the characters were all very meh that I just lost interest. I think the book can appeal to more people then the others I read by Tremblay (Cabin and Pallbearers) but once again it just fell flat proving to be an unenjoyable reading experience on the whole. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Blood, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Murder

erica_reads_things's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

An edge-of-your-seat-cant-put-this-down read diving into the horror tropes of possession and exorcism and highlighting the problematic history of exorcism within the Church. I loved the characters and trajectory of this book. The inserts of the horror blog examining the eventual reality show in the story was so clever. I could not put this book down and I think I'll be thinking of this one for a while. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Gore, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

Minor: Domestic abuse and Forced institutionalization

ilaxaria's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Blood, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Alcohol

Moderate: Bullying, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, and Excrement

Minor: Pedophilia, Violence, and Forced institutionalization

percys_panda_pillow_pet's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Horrifyingly tragic, A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is filled to the brim with terrible scenes, all told from the point of view of the youngest character to witness everything. I just felt so bad the entire time reading this for not just Marjorie and Merry, who were just kids, but also characters like Sarah and Ken; who while aren't blameless entirely, are forced to witness a lot of this horror with seemingly no agency to fight against it. 

I also felt really bad that the one who I felt more creeped out by was not Marjorie, with her gruesome stories and actions, but Merry, who seemed to take glee from her and her sister's trauma. Merry should be a somewhat reliable narrator as a kid, aside from her shoddy memory. There isn't a reason to suspect her of leaving things out. However, I felt wary all the same as Merry became known for being an exaggerator and a storyteller. There's a few reveals later on in the book that highlight this fact and it just made me very suspicious of someone who is just a very traumatized child/person. 

Tremblay has done a fantastic job here with this book. A reader questioning a narrator's true feelings makes for good conversation and deeper reading. I am so torn with Merry as a character. My initial feelings were as stated above: Merry is creepy for the way she expresses her thoughts on the situation and her sister. However, after I finished the book, I couldn't help but think that maybe Merry was just trying to find her own way of understanding what all happened in her childhood, everything that led up to the greatest tragedy of her life. Afterward, all I could see was a girl-now-adult, still struggling to figure out why her sister acted the way she did, what her sister could've been thinking throughout it all.

When I started this book, the summary had not prepared me for the gruesome descriptions Tremblay employed, nor how sad a story this really was. I just felt so bad for Marjorie, more than anything. She didn't deserve anything that happened to her, and needed to be taken out of the home and cameras that were definitely making things worse. I am curious to know of other's opinions of the portrayal of schizophrenia in this book. I did not touch on it as I am not an expert on the condition, nor do I have the condition. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Cursing, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug use, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Confinement and Domestic abuse

simp4sneks's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gaslighting

Minor: Ableism, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

defeating_my_demons's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis