Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

101 reviews

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

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Body horror

dale1997's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

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

lata's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Holy shit, that was pretty sad. AND THE END... WHAT?! the start was boring, but the third part of the book compensates that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Body horror, Excrement, Sexism, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Self harm

evanaviary's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

maybe the real demons were the friends we made along the way

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Child death, Death, Death of parent, and Mental illness

Minor: Suicide attempt

hellokatya's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

2.5

i wanted to like this book; i went in so excited but it really just fell flat. i had read in someone else’s review about the blog posts being out of place, and considering there wasn’t much done with them — and it spoiled the biggest twist — i am also not a fan. i feel like the story being told on chronological order, through the unreliable perspective of an 8 year old would’ve served the book a lot better. saddened to see the loss of the potential it had.
 try hard to pick back up once i’d put it down.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Suicide attempt, Bullying, Mental illness, Death, Death of parent, and Suicide

Moderate: Body horror, Grief, and Vomit

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Misogyny, and Pedophilia

gkaltam's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

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: Schizophrenia/Psychosis and Mental illness

Minor: Homophobia, Sexual content, Blood, Gore, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Body horror, Self harm, Domestic abuse, Death, Suicide attempt, Cursing, Bullying, Emotional abuse, 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: Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, Blood, Mental illness, and Grief

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

Minor: Forced institutionalization and Domestic abuse

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

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

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Violence, and Pedophilia