A Head Full of Ghosts

A Book Review

I liked Merry. She was an adorable eight-year-old kid, and I loved watching her be herself. With her Richard Scarry books, her cardboard house, her silly little games. Even the idle antics that she would do, like treating the arm of the couch as a hobby horse, made her real. Merry was as real a kid as there could be in a novel. And she grounded the story in realism. She is what drew me in and kept me wanting to read. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved every part of this book. But Merry was the main character for a reason, and I loved that it was told through her young perspective.

But although this is Merry’s story, Marjorie is the cause of all the drama. She is suffering from what appears to be severe mental illness. The Barrett family desperately tries to help her without knowing how, while also trying to keep their family together. This is all I can say about the plot, as it’s all that’s said or implied by the book’s blurb. I don’t want to be blamed for spoiling. 

A Head Full of Ghosts is a psychological horror novel by Paul Tremblay, and he wove a story that wasn’t over when I read the last page. Well, the story had ended, but there, my thoughts took over. I’m still thinking about it, and I probably would for some time. There’s no body horror in this book, although there were a scene or two that were pretty gruesome. No, this is a book that messes with your head and gets you thinking. And I loved that.

The novel does a great job of leading us through the events of the Barretts’ attempts at helping Marjorie, all told through both eight-year-old and adult Merry’s perspective. Adult Merry is telling the story to Rachel, a woman who will be writing a book about the Barretts’ story. This was a perspective choice that worked quite well, and was fun to follow. Since I cared so much about Merry, I was glad to know that she survived—at least physically. I’ll let you decide how she’s doing by the end of the book. 

I knew the novel was psychological horror before I picked it up, because it had been recommended to me by two people whose tastes I trust. This helped me enjoy the book, because if I was expecting blood and gore and people dying all over the place, then this would have been a disappointment. But I was fully expecting the kind of ride that I was to have, and yet it delivered that ride with finesse. I was excited to read it and looked forward to my times with the book. I totally ate it up.