Hello everyone! I hope you are all holding up in this chilly fall weather. There’s no better time to catch up on your spookier reads. As I have said in the past, spooky season is whenever you want it to be but something about October just feels different. The atmosphere is just perfect for chills and thrills of all sorts. I just finished the new Netflix series “The Fall of the House of Usher” and absolutely adored it. I’m a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe and Mike Flanagan (who wrote the show and has done other horror series on Netflix). I highly recommend the series if you are looking for something horror-related to watch. Anyways, let’s talk about A Head Full of Ghosts

Content Warning: Violence, Harsh Language, Graphic Bodily Injury, Harm Towards Children, Discussions and Depictions of Religious Trauma, Discussions and Depictions of Severe Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Graphic Deaths

The Barretts had been a normal family living in New England. Their entire lives are thrown into disarray when their fourteen-year-old daughter Marjorie starts showing signs of acute schizophrenia. Her behavior quickly turns from disturbing to violent. In a desperate attempt to save their daughter, they turn to a Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly believes that Marjorie is possessed by a demon. He agrees to help the family if they allow him to film everything for a reality show. John, Marjorie’s father, agrees in the hopes that it will save his daughter and save the family from financial ruin. The Possession becomes a reality television hit and the Barretts are thrust into the limelight. Tragedy, though, brings the show to an end but it continues to live in infamy. Now, fifteen years later, the younger Barrett daughter, Merry, is an adult who is still trying to grapple with everything that happened. As she talks to a journalist who wants to help tell her story, Merry begins to wonder what really happened to her family all those years ago.

A Head Full of Ghosts was a short but intense read with dizzying and gruesome details that leave you wondering what is actually happening at any moment. The “possession” sub-genre of horror tends to be a bit overdone nowadays. Paul Tremblay, though, blends the horror genre with psychological thrills. I think the most compelling element of the story is that most of it is told through Merry’s childhood memories, which add another level of doubt to the narrative. I also appreciated the overall commentary on the exploitative nature of reality television and how it can push already desperate people to extremes. This was quite a shocking read that will have you guessing until the very end and won’t give you the answers that you want. You should definitely pick up A Head Full of Ghosts.