Tangled Bookmarks

Dull dull dull. I've never seen this "Ghost Hunters" or "TAPS" or whatever it's called - we don't get it over here. I picked this up solely because I enjoy reading true paranormal stories/ghost investigations. This could possibly be the only case EVER of the book being worse than the movie/tv show. Cos surely the tv show is more detailed? K? Yes?

Each case written about is approx 3 pages long. With a tiny little paragraph at the end of each by the other guy, Grant. Gives us NO added information to the story, btw. Could have dropped those entirely and you wouldn't have missed them.

The cases read like a TV Guide summary of the show. Seriously! They don't go into ANY detail on what exactly the "set up" is when they investigate. He doesn't tell us all the equipment they use, he doesn't tell us HOW they set it up or where or anything. It's basically "We set everything up and then started walking around in the dark". Uh huh. Right. Good to know.

There's just no detail, peoples! Compared to the one I recently finished Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown, this one is the same as a book report you'd do for school. Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown is VERY detailed - Ryan talks a LOT more of the actual investigation, what they use, how the society came to be, what's happened to him in his life that gave him the interest in the paranormal, and the cases described are MUCH more than just a recap. He details things that happened when the cameras weren't on, and things they had to leave out of the show (due to time constraints etc). Ryan also explains HOW they became a tv show.

Ghost Hunting: True Stories of Unexplained Phenomena from The Atlantic Paranormal Society does none of this. How did they get to be on tv? I also couldn't understand their penchant for practical joking during an investigation. Humour's all well and good, and can defuse a frightening or tense moment, but pulling pranks during a serious investigation just doesn't gell with me. Jason goes on and on and ON about how you have to be "professional" during an investigation, then starts going on about how he liked to grab someone's leg to scare them. WTF? Am I supposed to have watched the show to understand the context of that? In which case, this book has a fairly limited demographic of readers, cos believe it or not, this show is NOT shown all around the world.

And after the umpteenth time the author said something quite nasty about another member of the team, I was ready to give up. Didn't understand why he had to add such personal attacks on someone else all the time. We get it - you had issues with a team member. Fine. Did you really have to talk about it all the time? You couldn't just say you felt an unnamed member of the team wasn't pulling his weight so he was let go? Did you really have to get so personal and nasty in a public book? Yep, that's professional. :rolls eyes:

Wish we could give half a star instead of having to give a full one. This trash was just boring from start to finish. It gave no real insights into the tv show, no practical information on HOW they conduct an investigation and what they use, no real details on teh cases themselves, and it trash-talked publicly a named person.

The ONE star is because they included a case they found to be fake,which was quite interesting and not something I've seen other books do. But again, no real detail on that either.

I didn't like the way they would spend one night and then conclude a place wasn't "haunted" or they couldn't find any evidence of paranormal activity...after ONE night. I understand they can't do lengthy investigations, but honestly, stating "not haunted" or "no paranormal activity" just because they didn't find anything on the ONE night they were there, really got up my nose.

Glad I didn't pay for this book.