Review: American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America by Linda S. Godfrey

I admit that I sometimes enjoy reading things of a weird or strange nature. So I came across this title while browsing books and figured I would take a chance on it. I wasn't entirely sure if this book would come across as being similar to the Weekly World News type of rag or be of actual substance.

One of the things I have to mention about this book that I found troubling and kind of boring was the break down of category of monsters. For instance, the author starts the book out by telling of flying monsters, and she tends to be a bit dry in this telling of this particular category. Although I was kind of put off by the mentions of this type of "big birds" but I did learn about a lot of legendary creatures I had never heard of before. And the section on flying creatures was quite long.

It's worth it to get past the flying creatures and sea monsters to get to the better American monsters. Did I mention that all of these creatures are supposed to be of American origin? Once she gets to land creatures is when the book really gets interesting. She discusses everything from dogmen to bigfoot and chupacabras. Even some other strange combos such as pigmen, goatmen, and a cat lady legend from the South.

But apparently, her specialty is the legend of the bigfoot. She does do at least two chapters on the legend of the bigfoot and even describes different types of bigfoot, which to be honest I wasn't aware that they could be classified in different ways. Or such things as batmen and mothmen. I could go on and on about the different legends she mentions. I do appreciate that she often mentions sources while talking about the different creatures, and has conducted personal interviews with people who have recently sighted some of these strange creatures.

This review is not a discussion as to whether these legendary creatures are real or have existed but is based on the content which has been read. I enjoyed reading this book and I am willing to check out another book by this author. I would recommend this to anyone who is into weird stuff, and those who believe that these strange creatures exist or those who are simply curious about the possible existence of strange undiscovered creatures. I rated this book 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.com and I hope that you will give this strange compilation of creatures a read. I have a link for those of you from the UK and Canada to pick this book up here. I also have a link to purchase any other books cheaper and with free worldwide shipping here.

Review: Red Thorn Vol. 2 Mad Gods and Scotsmen

First off I have to say I absolutely loved the first volume of this series. I was super impressed as it seemed original and pulled some fascinating folklore into it. This was the first book of 2017 that I gave 5 stars to on Goodreads. So, of course, I really wanted to read more in this series. I have included the review I did of the first volume just so you get an idea of how much I enjoyed it.

I know that the second volume has been available for quite awhile now, but I decided to read other stories so that I may savor the anticipation of reading this series. I finally got around to reading this recently, and I felt very let down. Not only was this nowhere near as good as the prior volume, but apparently this is the end of the series??? Or at least that was the impression the ending of this volume gave me. If that was not the only gripe I had it would be fine, but events in this book seemed to jump scenes with no real explanation or reason for why whole scenes seemed to fast forward at times leaving me confused and thinking how did that happen. This read as if they decided to end the series before this was even written and fuddled through writing this that they made for awkward progression through the finishing of it. I decided to rate this 3 out of 5 stars only because I really enjoyed the first volume, but this was not what I had hoped for in a conclusion.