Published: 2, June 2015
Author: Paul Tremblay
Genres: Fiction, Horror Fiction, Horror, Literature, Psychological Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers, U.S. Horror Fiction
Check out the review of this book here:
Useful search related words & keywords:
Blog Posts, Bram Stoker Award, Dark, Demonic Possession, Demons, Depression, Exorcism, Full Of Ghosts, Gloomy Location, Haunting, Head Full, Highly Recommend, Hypersensitivity, Jittery, Mental Illness, Mentally Ill, Paranoia, Paul Tremblay, Possession, Reality Show, Reality Television Show, Scare, Schizophrenia, Stephen King, Suburban, Terrify, Terrifying Tale, Tragedy, Unreliable Narrator, Urban Legend, Well Written
Summary:
Meredith "Merry" Barrett, a 23-year-old who is now ready to talk about the horrible events that happened when she was eight years old, is the protagonist of the novel. Merry relates this story to Rachel Neville, a writer. These flashbacks serve as the novel's plot, with a few chapters showing Merry and Rachel in the present. A couple chapters also include entries from "The Last Final Girl," a blog. This blog, authored by a young lady named Karen, delves into a deconstruction of Merry and her family's appearance on the reality TV show The Possession. Karen turns out to be a fictitious character.
Merry's family life is difficult as we follow her as a precocious 8-year-old. Her father, John, is unemployed, leaving her mother, Sarah, to be the main earner in the family as their savings account depletes. To make matters worse, Merry's sister Marjorie has been acting more strangely, blurring the line between schizophrenia and full-fledged demonic possession. This is brought to Merry's notice as her sister began telling her bizarre and morbid stories based on characters from Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go instead of harmless ones. Merry has no idea that Marjorie has been visiting a therapist; she only finds out when Marjorie has a particularly terrible episode.
Things continue to deteriorate until Merry's father, who had recently converted to Catholicism, feels Marjorie is possessed by a demon and seeks the assistance of his church's priest, Father Wanderly, who believes an exorcism is required. Meanwhile, John offers to have Marjorie star in The Possession, a reality television show. A television team, led by director/producer Barry Cotton and head writer Ken Fletcher, moves into the Barretts' house and begins filming their every move.
The program only serves to further divide the family, and during this time, Marjorie informs Merry that she has been faking her demonic possession signals. She opted to do so since the family was on the verge of losing their house, and the show's producers were providing them with enough money to keep them afloat. It's difficult to determine if Marjorie is speaking the truth or not, and at the conclusion of the story, this is left up to interpretation.
Tensions rise as the story progresses, culminating in Marjorie Barrett's exorcism. As Merry tells Rachel her narrative, additional secrets emerge, blurring the borders between fiction and non-fiction, truth and imagination even more.
Recommended: 90/100 Yes.
Buy the Kindle version here:
Free with free Audible trial:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Any kind of support, even a simple 'like, thumbs up or a small comment' is enough and helps me grow, create and freely do more stuff and work on projects for the benefit of many.
Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Namsu
Help me grow into a global force: https://www.patreon.com/namsu
Support with crypto coins/tokens: https://cointr.ee/namsu
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
