A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

*SPOILERS* This is not so much a book review as me unpacking what I just read.

I love a good, old-fashioned possession story. I am a huge sucker for classic good vs evil stories, God vs, the devil, that is my jam. Unfortunately, this is not a story about demonic possession. I remain puzzled about why the author chose to reveal to the reader so early on that Marjorie was faking, I would have liked to decide for myself.  

Despite the obviousness that there is no demon present in Marjorie, there is still a lot to unpack in this book that is worth talking about. Well, let me take a step back. I think there is a snobbish part of my brain that wants to point out how obvious everything was, but there are many breadcrumbs left by the author that led down alternate paths.

For example, when Merry claims that she “swears she remembers” seeing her mother tie her sister down before the exorcism, that is our first clue that memory is not absolute, and we have an unreliable narrator on our hands. The only confession we have that Marjorie was faking is relayed to us through Merry and her memories from (15, I think?) years ago. How trustworthy is that information, really?

Also consider that we know for a fact that Merry has historically lied about Marjorie’s antics. The basement scene! This was not a “whoops, I didn’t see what I thought I saw moment,” this was intentional deception. We can be certain that Merry cannot be trusted.

And this is where the book falls apart a bit for me. The author badly wanted us to look to Merry and question who in this story was, in fact, possessed. But the pieces just don’t fit, and in a way I resented how every theme of the book felt so…glaring. The blog passages from “Karen” were entertaining, but I don’t particularly need a stand-in character for me, the reader.

Overall though, I enjoyed the hell out of this book. It has some genuinely creepy moments, and it’s a fun love letter to the demonic possession genre. My largest gripe is the lack of subtlety, but I definitely recommend it and look forward to reading other people’s thoughts on the themes.