To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.
Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface--and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.
Stephen King recommended this book on his twitter and as with almost all of his recommendations, this one didn't disappoint me, it was one of the most thought provoking novels I have read lately.
This book plays with the reader's mind from the start, making you doubt about everything: is Marjorie really possessed or is she mentally ill? is the reality show a fraud? what really happened the night of the exorcism?
All of this is reinforced by the fact that the narrator is unreliable, we get to know what happened from the testimony of a girl who was only eight years old when everything happened so it can be a little misleading.
Another aspect that adds to the ambiguity of this story is that each section of the book starts with a blog post from Karen, a self proclaimed "expert in all-things horror and pop culture" blogger, who analyses each chapter of the reality show trying to figure out if it's truly a televised exorcism or a fraud. I found these fragments to be really good because it adds another point of view and tries to explain everything comparing the reality show to other exorcism movies, on this posts Tremblay displays a wide knowledge of horror culture that really amazed me.
I think that this is more a psychological thriller with horror elements instead a pure horror novel. This doesn't means that it hasn't some nasty scenes, there are some really creepy moments that are a great homage to other horror classics and some disturbing fragments such as this:
"The flooding black river of blood will be the only thing to ever pour out of your mouth again. No more words. No one will listen to you. That's the worst part, Merry. You will not be able to speak ever again, which means you will never be able to tell anyone about what will happen next to you and everyone else in this house. All the awful, terrible, unspeakable shit that will happen to you, and it will happen to you, and to everyone else...I know. I've heart about it and I've seen it. No one escapes."The ending was my favourite part of this book, it caught me by surprise because I thought everything was clear; the ending turned upside down all my assumptions and that was amazing. This is the kind of endings that I love on psychological-esque books and the way Tremblay pulled it off was brilliant.
Rating 9/10: Despite some minor inconveniences that I didn't like this was a terrific book that I totally recommend if your'e into books that plays with your head. The ambiguous ending will make you elaborate theories about what happened and I found it amazing. I wouldn't call it an open ending but it left enough room for the reader to think what he wants about some loose ends.
No comments:
Post a Comment