Reviews

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

kmparsons's review against another edition

4.0

I was really unsure about this book when I reached about the half way point. It started to lag a little bit and I began to not care as much, however, it quickly picked up again and I was completely enthralled. After the last sentence, I say for a long few minutes to think about what I had just read and it was almost like a puzzle connecting in my brain. The writing was beautiful and the store had a great flow to it. The only aspect I did not enjoy was the blog posts because I did not like how they were written. They brought a lot to the story and served a purpose, but the way they were written really bothered me.

kaylee2222's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

Brilliant!

astro_444's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

coffee_some_more's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

curiousintrovert's review against another edition

4.0

No surprise, another of my favorites for 2022 has exorcism and thus themes of faith and mental health. These ideas go together very often. As I read The Exorcist this year too... my definition of 5 stars has now been altered. This is a good book and I enjoyed the POV as well as the way the plot unfolds.

pbraue13's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

kariharumi's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

wonkywishes's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

5.0

leonjgonzalez'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

njdarkish's review against another edition

3.0

This book was fine. An interesting schizophrenia story framed in the context of retelling a the story of a present-day exorcism. There were a lot of things I liked about the book-- I thought there were some truly creepy moments and I liked that there was some ambiguity about the illness versus the potential for demonic possession.
However, I had a few problems with the book as well. Particularly, the blog sections. I've learned from other reviews that apparently the blog sections were based on a real Goodreads reviewer, but even still they felt very contrived to me. Well, maybe contrived isn't the right word. I guess it was that they annoyed me, and the idea that a blog like that (with so many dad-jokes and parenthetical asides intended to point out how clever the author is) would be picked up by Fangoria or really any horror mag seemed really unrealistic to me. I hated each of those sections. I also really didn't like any of the characters except 8-year-old Merry, which made me significantly less invested in the story. I think it would have helped if they had shown more of what made the relationship between the sisters good before the illness/possession stuff started creeping in.