Hot and sexy and smart people READ BOOKS.
You heard it here first folks. Actually no, everyone knows that people that read books are smarter and hotter and just overall better than everyone else.
I’m joking!
…
Anyway I do love me a good book, and was Head Full of Ghosts a good book?
Errrrrr, yes?
Honestly everytime I finish a Stephen King book and then pick up a book by a different author, I can’t help but wonder why people don’t write like King does.
Also don’t get it twisted, I like reading but I don’t consider myself a novel critic either.
I literally just work here.
No, this book was good, and I can say that because I actually finished it. I wasn’t exactly racing to get to the end like I do when a book is fantastic, but I definitely had interest in the story and the events that played out.
It was definitely a perspective story, the character development is pretty absent unless you count the degradation of character of the main character’s parents (which I actually thought was interesting). What I have to tell myself when analyzing this book, is that the main character is eight years old for the majority of the story, so everything being told is from her innocent and unjaded point of view. Events unfold around her, and all she can do is try and be a kid, and that’s the entire point of how the story is told.
I was expecting this to be filled to the brim with scares, as the primary reason I read it was this quote from Stephen King that’s actually featured on the cover:
“A Head Full of Ghosts scared the living hell out of me, and I’m pretty hard to scare.”
Was it a cover-to-cover horror show? No. But, I did read the majority of this book right before going to bed every night, and did I make sure my feet were under the covers…?
Maybe, so what if I did? You would too.
I can say that when this book decides to go for the scares, it’s extremely unsettling. Some of the things that the poor-possessed teen Marjorie endures and does are truly disturbing. I was on edge everytime Marjorie would speak, and I always knew something unexpected could happen while she was around.
At its core though, this book is definitely a family drama first, and everything else second; that’s something that I was certainly unprepared for. It kind of reminds me of the way Hereditary is the same; a family drama at its core, but I feel that that movie balanced the two elements a lot better than this novel did.
There’s an inclusion of a different perspective from a character named Kate that, while I was more interested in the main story, definitely provided an interesting and thought-provoking point of view. Towards the end of the novel, when all the details are revealed, the inclusion of this POV finally becomes as clever as it was intended to be.
The much eluded to climax, to me at least, is pretty anticlimactic. What happens after this though, was enthralling to me, and I blew through the last 40 or so pages of this without pause. That’s where the real horror always lies; in the unknown, and the finale of this book absolutely nailed that.
Overall, would I read this again? No. But I would recommend it to other Stephen King/horror/suspense novel fans. It’s a quick and entertaining read, and definitely provided an interesting perspective on the modern day use of mass media, as well as including themes of youth and trauma.
7/10
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