Wednesday, April 20, 2016

A Head Full of Ghosts, by Paul Tremblay

  • Title:  A Head Full of Ghosts
  • Author:  Paul Tremblay
  • Borrowed from DC Public (AudioBook)
  • Started:  4/16/2016
  • Finished:  4/19/2016
This one started off a little slow and I wasn't sure I would enjoy it.  The blogger seemed particularly annoying.  Well it was just a slow burn, because soon the book had me hooked and I struggled to do anything other than finish this work.

You don't get a lot of answers in this book, but I'm ok with that.  Similar to the book I read in the summer of last year, The Voices (by Tallis), it is up to the reader to decide which theory they subscribe too.

Do you trust the narrator?  Even though she's only 8 (when the events happened), and at the end presents herself to be potentially totally untrustworthy?  Do you think the sister was really possessed?  Is the narrator possessed?  Was the father molesting the sister?  If so, did the mom know and turned a blind eye?  Were the reality TV crew in on the fake possession (if fake)?  Ken specifically?

Some readers will likely be annoyed that these questions and many others are never answered.  Again, I suspect many readers were annoyed by the lack of answers in The Voices.  If I had any criticism at all, it would be the that we are told at the end of the book that some statements by the narrator contradict (I'm paraphrasing) the police report -- but we are never provided that report.  I sure would have liked an appendix that contained that report to give us even more to chew on.

Anyway, this is the most I've written about a book in a while, so you can tell I enjoyed it.  For what it is worth, my gut says there is no possession, the sister was mentally ill, and the narrator is semi-reliable.  I'm on the fence about the father molesting the sister and the mother knowing about it but not doing anything to stop it.  But I think I like that explanation best, as it sets up the ending best (narrator & red sauce).

As a side note, I grew to love those blog posts that I initially hated, mostly because the blogger had the same love of horror lit and movies that I do (or that everyone who would read a book like this would).  My only complaint was that I didn't get any recommendations for books or movies, since I had already consumed all that were mentioned.

No comments: