A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

 

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⭐ 5/5 Book Review: A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay – Who’s Really Possessed Here?! 👻

👉 Grab A Head Full of Ghosts on Amazon 📚 (affiliate link)

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⚠️ Trigger Warnings

• Child death & family annihilation 💔

• Mental illness / psychosis 🧠

• Religious trauma ⛪

• Possession & exorcism horror 😈

• Violence & poisoning ☠️

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First Impressions 💭

Wow. Just… wow. This book is a mind-bending horror gem that I’m going to be thinking about for a long time. Paul Tremblay has this way of pulling the rug out from under you so many times that by the end, you’re not even standing—you’re just lying on the floor whispering, “What just happened??” 😅

Our narrator, Merry, is the definition of an unreliable narrator. She’s charming, funny, unsettling, and very possibly… possessed. Or is she? That’s the question that will eat at you long after you close the book.

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📖 Full Spoiler-Filled Plot Summary

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: From here on out, I’m diving headfirst into all the twists, turns, and shocking ending of this book. If you want to go in blind, skip to my final thoughts!

A Head Full of Ghosts (2015) follows 23-year-old Meredith “Merry” Barrett, who is being interviewed by author Rachel Neville for a nonfiction book about the infamous TV series The Possession. That series had documented her sister Marjorie’s supposed possession 15 years earlier.

The Family Setup

• Marjorie Barrett (14 years old) starts showing disturbing behavior—hearing voices, acting out, talking in strange voices.

• The Barrett family is in financial freefall: dad is unemployed and getting real cozy with the local priest, while mom is the only one holding things together.

• Enter the church 🕍: Dad believes Marjorie is possessed and ropes in Father Wanderly.

• Enter Hollywood 🎥: A reality/documentary crew films the family for a TV show called The Possession.

What Actually Happened?

Marjorie tells little Merry on multiple occasions that she’s faking possession—was she doing it for the cameras and to help the family make money or did she truly believe her father planned on killing them all?

The exorcism scene is wild:

• Marjorie wants Merry in the room even though Mom is against it.

• During the ritual, things get scary—cold air fills the room, chaos ensues, and Marjorie ends up in the hospital.

Afterward, things only get worse at home. The show crew leaves, the church backs off, and the family spirals.

The Murders 💀

Here’s where it gets truly disturbing:

• Merry tells Rachel that Marjorie convinced her to help poison their parents. She claims Marjorie convinced her their father was going to kill both of them. She never thought Marjorie would ingest the poison too and was shocked when Marjorie did.

• Merry claims she mixed poison into the spaghetti sauce… as Marjorie instructed, and later used Marjorie's body to put Marjorie's fingerprints on the poison jar.

• When the police investigate, the only identifiable fingerprints on the poison jar belong to the father.

So… did Merry really kill everyone? Did Dad? Or did Marjorie manipulate it all? Tremblay gives us just enough evidence in every direction to keep you doubting.

The Ending That Chills ❄️

At the final interview with Rachel, Merry seems eerily unaffected by the horrors she’s recounting. And then… the temperature in the café drops. Breath fogs in the air. Just like it did during Marjorie’s “possession” years ago.

Which begs the ultimate question:
👉 Was Merry actually possessed all along?

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My Thoughts 🤯

This book is brilliantly layered. On the surface, it’s about possession and exorcism. But peel it back, and you’ve got commentary on:

• Reality TV exploitation 📺

• Mental illness vs. supernatural explanations 🧩

• The unreliability of memory 📚

• Childhood trauma 💔

And then Tremblay throws in that ending, making you question EVERYTHING you just read. Personally, I lean toward Merry being the one possessed all along. It makes sense of Marjorie insisting Merry be present at the exorcism, and it explains Merry’s cool detachment as an adult. But the beauty of this book is that it’s deliberately ambiguous—you can argue any theory and still be right.

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Final Verdict ⭐

A Head Full of Ghosts is one of those once-a-year, blow-your-mind horror reads. Creepy, disturbing, darkly funny, and endlessly discussable. If you like horror that makes you question reality and leaves you unsettled long after, this one’s for you.

👉 My rating: ⭐ 5/5

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🧛 More Books Like A Head Full of Ghosts

If you enjoyed this, you might also like:

• The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay (more ambiguity, more terror)

• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (the OG mind-twisting horror)

• The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (classic possession horror)

• Sundial by Catriona Ward (family horror + unreliable narration)

👉 Check A Head Full of Ghosts out on Amazon 📚 (affiliate link)