Hi readers,
I'm kicking off this year's book reviews with a non-fiction book. I don't think this is a first for me, but this year, I want to expand my reading and try some different books out. Also, I'm trying to read 50 books this year! I read 20 last year of which this true ghost stories book was the second to last. 50 books might not be a big ask of some people, but for me it is a challenge due to being dyslexic, but I'm hopefully I can achieve it.
I do enjoy reading non-fiction supernatural books and have read a few of them now. There's something interesting about this mysterious 'other world' of unnatural happens. Some books do set out to convince you it's all real which can sometimes make it hard going, this book does have a bit of angle towards that, but it's let down by bad writing. That's the main reason why I choose to review this book!
At first, Hauntings comes across as a factual book, listing the different kinds of ghosts and paranormal activity that has been record over the years. This is okay, but for someone who's read a few ghost books, they'll know most of this information. There's no added details or sense of new information about these ghosts. Then there's the true stories of hauntings and ghosts which come from across the world and different people, but these accounts are not well written.
The chapters are divided up into the different kinds of ghosts and paranormal activity; Haunted Homes, Highways To Hell, Poltergeists. This does work though you get a bit of over lapping. There's introduction from the author about his experiences with ghosts then the first chapter lists the different kinds of ghosts and an explanation about what ghosts actually are.
The second chapter focus totally on the city of Edinburgh which is claimed to be the most haunted city in the world. The stories listed here though are about well known haunted places and ghosts. There is an interview from a local ghost tour guide about the experiences he and visitors have had. This is interesting and does show that ghost tours can be more then just historical walks around.
Then in the other chapters, we get a lot of 'true stories' about different ghosts. Some of these are just like a paragraph or two of eye witness accounts of supernatural sightings. Others include quotes from people and some of the stories are complete accounts. This mixture of writing is a bit jarring and there's no flow. Also, the bulk of the stories/accounts just suddenly stop; there's no ending/conclusion, which makes the writing worse. I realise in some cases there might not be a solid ending, but it would be easy enough to round up the story.
I found some of the longer ghost stories to be a bit dull. There is one which is taken from a diary but we only get the main activity of the ghost and it's very broken up. Also, there are some interviews which feel like they go on for too long. I get that some of the stories are not to going to be exciting like fiction can make them, but if the writing of these accounts was better written then the stories might come across more interesting. I guess that's the downside to using so many quotes accounts though.
The other issue with this book is it's size. It's a tall thin book, over A4 size. I think that is because it's a very photograph heavy book and the author/designer/editor decided to give us full page photographs. There is also large photos or collections of smaller photos on every page or next. Whilst this is great for really showing what ghosts and paranormal activity looks like, most of these photographs are not of real ghosts. There's maybe only a handful which are real and those photos are ones that are well-known to be of real spirits because they can't be disproved in anyway. There's also a few drawings which have been either taken from the accounts of people or drawn to go along side them. Even though it's good to have a visual interpretation, I feel this photos help to mask the bad and thinly detailed writing of the ghost stories.
Overall, there are better books of this nature out there.
Thanks for reading and see you next week. In the meantime, please check out my goodreads book list and my other blog where I write a short story everyday.
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7400715-hayley-hardman
https://thestoryfiles.wordpress.com/
(Image from Goodreads)
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