Review: A Head Full of Ghosts

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Having read the book in full, I still don't know what to think about it. I still don't think it is scary, and the fact I expected it to be so, or to be more traditional horror in some way, probably colours how I feel about it. I don't think it was badly written by any stretch of the imagination, and when I stopped looking for the scary and just settled into the story I started really enjoying. Some scenes were particularly well-done, but more than anything else, I found the book to be terribly poignant, and more dramatic than scary.

The ending was the equivalent of a surprise gut-punch no matter how much I braced myself for it.

My only criticism is that at some points the book, much like the in-universe shows, seems to fall into a sleepy lull, but again, this might have more to do with my mistaken expectations than with any fault in the writing.

So if you are going to read this book, don't actually read it for the scary-ness/horror factor. Read it as drama and treat it as such, that way you wont have betrayed expectations colouring how you feel about it.

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