I chose to read this book because I'd read a few horror genre stories on WDC, so I wanted to read a novel. This one had an endorsement from Stephen King on the cover, saying it scared the hell out of him. So, a good book to choose, I thought.

The plot centres around the Barrett family; an every day middle class family with a mother and father and two daughters. Marjorie is fourteen, Merry is eight. All is well. And then, Marjorie begins to act oddly.

She displays signs of being possessed by demons, babbling and making no sense. She even says her head is full of people at one point. As her behaviour gets worse and worse, her parents take her to see a psychiatrist, who says she is schizophrenic and puts her on medication. But it only makes things worse.

Marjorie's behaviour is typical of the kind of things you would expect from a horror novel: speaking in tongues, vomiting, climbing the walls. I say it's typical, but that makes it sound ordinary, and I can tell you it isn't. The fourteen year old's behaviour is worse when she is around her younger sister, Merry. There were parts of the novel where my skin prickled, as I waited to see what she would do to Merry next. The suspense of the novel is really well written. Real edge of the seat stuff.

The whole story is told from Merry's point of view. She is speaking to a writer who wants to tell their family's story. This makes her recollections a little unreliable, a she was only eight at the time. I was impressed at her lack of fear of her sister.

When Marjorie becomes unmanageable, the father turns to the church. The priest, Father Wanderly, introduces them to a film crew who want to make a reality TV show about the family, called "The Possession." The father has been out of work for a year, and Marjorie's medical bills are huge, so he agrees.

The result is the whole affair, including the terrifying exorcism, is filmed. Which brings me to the last part of the story. The narrative has parts of a blog by a writer named Karen Brisette. She is watching the film that was taken at the time, and blogging about what happened. I think this is meant to be an examination of the whole reality TV thing. I didn't enjoy these parts, though. It made the text seem a little disjointed.

Horror fans. It has everything horror fans would expect from a novel in this genre. It's good for paranormal fans as well. But, also, it's good for people who just want a compelling, clever read.

The way we don't really know whether Marjorie was mentally ill, or whether she was possessed. There is no resolution at the end of the novel. Normally, that would annoy me. But, in this case, I like that we are left to out own imaginations. Because that's the whole point of the book—memories and the way we see things are unique to ourselves, and there will always be many points of view for one event. Memories are fallible. Who knows what is true and what is not?

The Karen Brisette sections. At first, they really confused me. Then, they really irritated me. I understand what Tremblay was trying to do. I just felt he missed the mark. But that's maybe because I really disliked the character of Karen.

Hide under my bed covers. Be held by my husband. I also wanted to recommend it to a friend who I knew would enjoy it.

Scared. Creeped out. Angry at the parents. Like I wanted to check under my bed and in all the cupboards.

Paul Tremblay is a horror writer, and this is the first book of his I have read. To have Stephen King say he was scared by it is a great compliment.

It's dark and frightening and will have you jumping and silently screaming. It's really well written. But, in addition, there is the reality TV layer. The question of how real it actually is. The question of how far someone will go to fulfil what is required of them on TV. Also, there is that whole question of mental illness versus possession. I love that aspect.

It is scary. It is gross in places. It has graphic sexual acts. If you don't like this kind of stuff, then don't read it.

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Created Oct 09, 2017 at 6:30am • Submit your own review...