Tag: paul tremblay

Categories
books and reading

Cabin at the End of the World

Holy. Smokes. This book!!! Definitely in my top reads of the year. I couldn’t put it down. This book is my third book by Paul Tremblay A Head Full of Ghosts (which I liked okay) and Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, which I thought was great, but this one is his best, so far. I absolutely loved it.

From Goodreads: Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.

One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault.” Three more strangers arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”

Thus begins an unbearably tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are entwined. The Cabin at the End of the World is a masterpiece of terror and suspense from the fantastically fertile imagination of Paul Tremblay.

Absolutely no spoilers because this book would be completely ruined by them, but the tension presented and the horror this family faces, both physical and psychological, is so terrifying. The story is told from multiple characters, which makes the plot even more awful because you see the events from so many different perspectives. I can’t really go into more, however. Tremblay is just a high school math teacher who happens to write books. At this point, I’m confident he could quit his day job and be just fine. I can’t wait to read his newest, Survivor Song.

Categories
books and reading

A Head Full of Ghosts

Confession that I didn’t know a single thing about this book when I bought it, other than it scared Stephen King. I assumed it was a horror book, but that was it. So I bought it because SK rules all.

Turns out this book is about demon possession and an exorcism. Sort of. Let me preface all this by saying that I hate the demon possession story line. It has been done over and over again with no new results. Either the possession is real or it isn’t. Either the demon is exorcised or it isn’t. There just isn’t a new or creative way of telling this story. And that holds true for this book.

That said, this book is very well written, but it didn’t scare me at all. I wanted to know what happened to the possessed girl and her family, but I won’t be having any nightmares over this one. Partly, because this type of story just isn’t scary to me. I don’t believe in demon possession, so it’s not something that I actually fear. If a person were afraid of this type of thing, I imagine this book would be quite terrifying. I did enjoy it, though. Mostly because the character, Merry, telling the story was such a fantastic unreliable narrator. She’s 8 and watching her family deal with her 14 year old sister’s possession and subsequent arrival of a slew of cameras and people who are filming this all for reality tv.

The delivery of the story was unique. Present day Merry telling a journalist the story of 8 year old Merry, combined with a blog poster who has watched the series dozens of times and is reviewing it and providing insights for her readers.

I recommend the book for the reasons above, namely the creative way the story is presented, although not for the simple demon possession plot. If that’s your thing, it’s worth reading because the possessed girl is sufficiently creepy.

Categories
books and reading

A Head Full of Ghosts 40% done

What a creepy little story! The majority of it is told by 8 year old Merry, as she watches her older sister, Marjorie, fall into the grips of possession. Marjorie has always been Merry’s hero, so seeing the transformation is confusing and difficult for Merry. And let me tell ya, Marjorie says some really awful things to poor Merry. I won’t even begin to describe some of the things she witnesses, either.

Alternating chapters are from a blogger who comments on the tv series that the family had that documented Marjorie’s change. They needed the money, so they allowed cameras in to film their lives.

And then we have adult Merry speaking to a writer about her life as a child.

Between these three perspectives, we really get a good idea of what happened in the house and how the entire “demon possession” concept is perceived by people and media.

I’m hooked on this story!

Categories
books and reading

A Head Full of Ghosts

Last night, I started A Head Full of Ghosts. One of the many things I love about Stephen King is that he recommends books constantly via media outlets. This particular book “scared the living hell” out of him. And when it went up on Amazon for $2 Kindle, I figured, why not? I don’t buy many Kindle books at full price (or any books for that matter), utilizing my local library, and Half Price Books usually. The rarities are ones that I already own hardback versions of from before I got my Kindle (like the Passage series) and now that I’ve started in hardback, I will continue to buy the rest of the series in that format. And I’m trying to build the entire SK collection in hardback, albeit used copies mostly.

I digress…. I’m very excited about this book. I read maybe 10% last night and am already hooked. It’s not ridiculously long, so I’ll get through it quickly, I think. And it seems to be in a couple formats: 1st person narrative spliced with a different character’s blog.

I like books that are terrifying in an understated way. I’m not a big fan of gross out horror, just because it’s so ridiculous. But I do love a good spooky or suspenseful story. Fingers crossed that this book is one of the latter.