So this was one of those books that I read over this past weekend when we were snowed in. So far in this challenge I have only read fiction books because that is honestly what I prefer but I thought this book would be fun. It is a non-fiction compilation of hauntings and ghost stories that have been proven to be true in one fashion or another. This really peaked my interest so I figured why not?
It was a super short read and each chapter was devoted to a different haunting or ghost story. What I was surprised to see was that I was already familiar with a lot of the hauntings covered in this book…I really don’t know what that says about me. Obviously, I cannot judge each of the hauntings because those were just facts that the author was stating, but I can review how she went about inserting her own views into the stories. It seemed, to me anyway, that she was trying to write as if she were presenting it in a haunted tv show. You know, where they are all like “so was it truly a nightmare or was it really a soul sucking demon chewing on her toes” type of thing. No, that was not a quote from the book but it definitely had that type of feel. Anyway, let’s get to it.
Star Rating: 3 out of 5 Author: Hannah J. Tidy Pages: 221
Pros:
- Each chapter was its own story, so if you didn’t want to read it all in one sitting you would always have a good spot to stop.
- There was a variety of stories from haunted to locations to haunted toys, so it really gave you a nice range.
Cons:
- A lot of the stories were already well known such as Amityville, Annabelle, Robert the doll. I mean these actually have movies based on them so I was not excited about those.
- This kind of goes with the con before…the book actually had 2 stories that were on Ghost Adventures. There are so many historical “hauntings” that are out there but we got 2 that were on TV. I was just disappointed that they weren’t more obscure stories.
Overall:
Not a bad book if you have some time to kill. The book is not scary or creepy but does give you the stories behind some hauntings. Would I say that this was the best book of this type? No, but it was still interesting. Would I read other books that the author wrote within this same genre? Maybe. I mean, I would much rather just listen to the Lore podcast to get these kinds of stories, but it was not bad to read on a dark, cold, and stormy night.
~Book 8 completed! I have climbed La Plata Peak!!~
The Owl's Book Nest 