A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

4.3 (15)
$18.99

Product details

Web ID: 4140119

WINNER OF THE 2015 BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL. A chilling thriller that brilliantly blends psychological suspense and supernatural horror, reminiscent of Stephen King's The Shining, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism, he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend. Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, secrets and painful.

  • Product Features

    • Suggested age range- Adult
    • Format- Paperback
    • Product dimensions- 5.3" W x 7.8" H x 0.9" D
    • Genre- Horror
    • Publisher: HarperCollins
    • Page count- 320
    • ISBN- 9780062363244
    • Paul Tremblay (Author)
    • Publication Date: 05-10-2016
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Ratings & Reviews

4.3/5

15 star ratings & reviews

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4 months ago
from Indianapolis

Highly Recommend

Solid ghost-ish story although I'm still not really sure what was real and what was not.

Recommends this product

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

2 years ago

A Rising Star in Horror

Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts follows the Barret family as their oldest of two daughters, Marjorie, begins to act out erratically and at time violently. It comes to a head when it's believed Marjorie is possessed, and to help alleviate the family's financial strains, they agree to let a documentary series about possessions film the family following this up to an exorcism. The kicker here is Tremblay never plays his whole hand. The reader is never quite sure if Marjorie is possessed or perhaps mentally ill. To further complicate this, the entire novel is from the perspective of the youngest daughter (8 years old at the time of filming), Merry Barret. She acts as a possibly unreliable narrator, and the novel jumps between the events of filming the show and Merry as an adult woman looking back on it. Personally I read this joining a friend's ill-fated book club that never went past the first book, though that was a people problem, not the book itself. The two friends I knew in the club couldn't stop raving about the book with me. We were supposed to only read to a certain amount of chapters and the three of us couldn't put this down. The events within are heartbreaking how you watch the strain this event puts on the family while it's only exacerbated by the filming. And everything involving Marjorie is disturbing and troubling, because you can't tell while reading if she is truly possessed or if something far sadder us occurring here. The story will constantly make you question yourself on what is afflicting Marjorie. I feel this is a modern horror classic. It pulls inspiration from classics like the Exorcist in how far its willing to go. The story structure has the jumping back and forth like Stephen King's classic IT. And it even contains epistolary sections akin to the ever popular horror behemoth, Dracula. Tremblay's prose is both intelligent yet always relatable and never pretentious. Guarentee when you turn the final page you will be thinking back on every significant moment in the novel.

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

2 years ago
from Westerly, RI

Remarkable Book By A Remarkable Author

Paul Tremblay is an insightful and talented author, and this is my favorite of the novels he's written so far. Marjorie is a disturbed young girl in need of help, but does she need a psychiatrist or an exorcist? Either way, she instead gets exploited on a reality show. This can't end well. I see correlations between this and Carrie, in style and theme but also in that both launched the careers of two incredible horror writers. I expect Tremblay to be a household name in the near future.

Recommends this product

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

2 years ago

Slow start, decent ending

I feel like it was a bit of a slow burn but I enjoyed the ending

Recommends this product

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

3 years ago

It was alright

Well written but too many unanswered questions. Could’ve cut out a lot of the blog, it was too wordy.

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

3 years ago
from Scottsdale, AZ

Made me afraid to fall asleep

A terrifying book written in the perspective of shooting a TV show about a family that is experiencing strange things with their eldest daughter. Incredibly creepy and a book I had a hard time putting down. I recommend this book to anyone who's searching for a truly scary book.

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

4 years ago

Excellent and Terrifying

I honestly had a hard time reading this book at night. The ending really makes you think. Terrific!

Recommends this product

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

4 years ago
from Minnesota

No. Don’t do it.

Honestly it was so hard to get into. I’m so close to being done with this book and it’s not even worth finishing. Super disappointed.

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com