Reviews with content warning for Bullying - A Head Full of Ghosts

Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

17 reviews

mossymossy's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

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onironic's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The real horror of this book is the ignorance and stigma surrounding mental illness, and I loved that. It's 100% a horror novel, but not in the conventional way. The main and viewpoint character being an 8-year-old girl amps up the horror and tension, when the reader knows and understands far more of what's happening, but is stuck riding on the shoulder of a child who, understandably, doesn't know enough of what's going on to change what's happening or protect herself from any of it. You see all the failures of the adults around her and can understand exactly how it all gets so bad, and have to helplessly watch these children deal with it as best they can while knowing exactly where it's going. This book doesn't hand any information to you whatsover, much less answers, but it will give you plenty of clues. I liked how many of the chapters jumped from meta-analysis to the future to the past. It gives context without derailing the story, all of it aiming at a terrible conclusion.

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lilarose's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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karamelka_kar19's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

There were a lot of happy and crappy moments. First of all, the bad ones.

In the parts when the interview for the upcoming book was conducted, it was hard to keep up with two women speaking, the ages especially. The blog thing? A a waste of space. A little things, but still they're matter.

What angered me most was the amount of POV, but not the possessed one. In this sense it is classic, right? They were witnesses, alright, but the story is not about them at all.This poor girl lived and suffered her parents and everyone else treating her like the way the did so we can hear how sad everyone around her is for her? Let the survivor tell their own story, god dammit.

That's to say, the book itself is aware of the situations, it's really clear it was the intention.

The most solid part was the sister relationship between the two main characters. They deeply cared about each other and it was the most heartbreaking and beautiful thing I've ever seen.

The book doesn't have a full "what happened" line straight, you always kept in a shadow of what's real and what's not. It reminded me of The cabin at the end of the world by the same author though I'm not saying that it's for the same group of people.

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