Monday book review: A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

That's right, bitches! We're branching out into the world of books here at From The Basement. Yes, Shawn's least favourite pass time is one of my favourite ones, so I figured it was high time (but not too high) that I started sounding off on what I'm reading.

And what better way to begin than with Paul Tremblay's 2015 shocker, A Head Full of Ghosts. Spoiler alert, it's freaking awesome!

Told largely from the POV of an eight-year-old girl, A Head Full of Ghosts explores the alleged possession of said girl's older sister, Marjorie, and the impact it has on her family... especially once a reality TV show comes into play. We get all the possession tropes here, ranging from William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, plus oodles more pop-culture references -- all deftly delivered with Tremblay's elegant yet easy-to-read prose.

What makes A Head Full of Ghosts work, and ultimately terrifying, is its ambiguity. Is Marjorie really possessed, or is she faking for other means? We're never really sure, not even through the story's final 40 pages, which are a gut punch of the highest order. I'm glad too, because there's a lot of powerful stuff going on in these 304 pages, and knowing for sure would've diminished the book's overall impact.

If you dig scary stories, then A Head Full of Ghosts is perfect heading into the spooky season. It's a fast, yet hugely satisfying read, and a must for horror fans. It scared Stephen King, and it even scared me. A Good.

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