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

I think it’s overhyped- it’s not a bad book, but it was not for me. I didn’t like “Karen’s” chapters at all, as they didn’t sound like a woman could write them- very much a male author who doesn’t know how portray a young woman’s voice. The last 4 chapters seemed especially rushed, like the author had run out of steam and wanted to put in as many twists and f*cked up things as possible.

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jkergan's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

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smileysam's review

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dark emotional 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

3.5

I want to start off by saying I often see this book described as a super scary and disturbing horror novel (which was initially what brought me to reading it) and it’s not. To me, this novel is moreso sad and gut wrenching than scary. It’s less paranormal possession horror and more real life, mental illness, and family splitting ‘horror’.

I will say, it felt real. I liked the story being told from an unreliable, naive narrator. It felt plausible, like it could happen to any one of us. I initially didn’t mind the blog entries - I did feel like they pulled me out of the story, but not necessarily in a bad way (not until the third one, anyway). I liked the supposed outsider POV and the foreshadowing we got from them.

I do wish, though, that the poisoning of the family was moreso alluded to than outright told to us in the third blog post. I feel like it could’ve create much more tension if it was brought up in Merry’s descriptions to begin with.

All in all, I would say the first 2 parts of this book were fantastic. Where it began to lose me was part 3. The pacing seemed to change and became too fast. Everything seemed to happen and more or less resolve instantly as it was brought up. I wish the third part could’ve maintained the same atmosphere and pacing and story telling that the other two had. I would say this book is worth a read, though. I did enjoy it, it just was not quite what I was expecting or hoping for.

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brookey8888's review

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.5

I don’t know how I feel about this book. It was interesting and the way it was told was intriguing, but it kind of just made me sad. Also I’m pretty sure this is classified as horror, but there was maybe like one creepy part(that I skipped over because I do not need to read graphic details about a 14 year old masturbating). Honestly it was just depressing to read about these girls and the mental illness and honestly the annoying father(which is kind of the point, but I just didn’t really expect that). I also did not like the ending like it was just so anticlimactic.

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