Paul Tremblay is often praised for ambiguity, psychological tension, and stories that blur the line between reality and delusion. I get the appeal. On paper, A Head Full of Ghosts should have worked for me. The concept is strong. The structure is clever. But the execution didn’t land.

The characters felt thin, especially the father. He is written as a stock religious tyrant, more a caricature than a person. It read like someone borrowing the surface language of fundamentalism without understanding how belief systems, cult dynamics, or religious psychology work. For instance, the father's rhetoric lacks the depth found in real-world fundamentalist beliefs, however damaging or offensive they may be. If the core doesn’t feel real, the story is not unsettling, just boring. The book relies on uncertainty and unreliable narration, but without fully realized characters at its center, the tension never builds.

I don’t think Tremblay is untalented. He is aiming at something interesting: horror that lives in interpretation rather than spectacle. But in this case, the characters didn’t carry the weight the concept needed.