Scan barcode
smurfolis's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book, it was captivating, informational, and extremely creepy. I found myself walking to my car at night alone or heading out of the house and checking over my shoulder, wide-eyed and scared. This book got under my skin and got me to spook easier for a few weeks.
I was so curious to read about the BEKs other than my internet searches and am so glad I found this book. It was chilling.
My only critique is that is gets a bit repetitive and a few mis-spellings that had me doing double takes on some sentences.
Great read.
I was so curious to read about the BEKs other than my internet searches and am so glad I found this book. It was chilling.
My only critique is that is gets a bit repetitive and a few mis-spellings that had me doing double takes on some sentences.
Great read.
ln_ellen_ln's review
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
2.0
This is a good book if you have an interest in learning about the urban legend of black-eyed children, as well as a very wide range of supernatural topics that the book brings up in an attempt to explain them! The author is a legit believer and pulls from a lot of sources when explaining the supernatural topics he explores.
I’ve got some gripes with the way very obvious rationalisations/explanations against the existence of black-eyed children have been completely omitted - namely that he never addresses that the people who he interviewed, if they really do believe what they saw, could be having hallucinations, for any number of reasons (eg. as a symptom of mental illness or acute stress?) The author even points out that these sightings tend to happen to service workers (ex marines, policemen, firemen, nurses, prison guards), and questions the reason these professions are most often ‘chosen to be visited’ - but fails to connect that these are also often high stress, sometimes very traumatic jobs. Why was that possibility not explored?
There was a brief attempt at debunking skeptics early on, but it’s not convincing when only one very weak, straw man, ‘skeptical’ argument is debunked and then other arguments are completely ignored.
I also don’t think he understood the youth of 2012. Yes, kids were more often ‘interested in their cell phones and Facebook’ than they were in going to strangers houses to scare them - a good portion of them were using those same devices to engage with and contribute to the BOOM of creepypasta content at the time, which is pretty much what this is.
There were a lot of editing errors in the book (eg. mid-sentence paragraph break on page 1; incorrect use of ‘too’; not enough commas; bibliography on last page had been entered twice), but this was the 2012 version of the book - hopefully the newer version has smoothed these out.
Overall, this was a really interesting read for the varied information on folklore and legends from around the world. Am I convinced that black eyed kids are real? Not at all. But I learned a lot about a variety of urban legends and supernatural forces.
I’ve got some gripes with the way very obvious rationalisations/explanations against the existence of black-eyed children have been completely omitted - namely that he never addresses that the people who he interviewed, if they really do believe what they saw, could be having hallucinations, for any number of reasons (eg. as a symptom of mental illness or acute stress?) The author even points out that these sightings tend to happen to service workers (ex marines, policemen, firemen, nurses, prison guards), and questions the reason these professions are most often ‘chosen to be visited’ - but fails to connect that these are also often high stress, sometimes very traumatic jobs. Why was that possibility not explored?
There was a brief attempt at debunking skeptics early on, but it’s not convincing when only one very weak, straw man, ‘skeptical’ argument is debunked and then other arguments are completely ignored.
I also don’t think he understood the youth of 2012. Yes, kids were more often ‘interested in their cell phones and Facebook’ than they were in going to strangers houses to scare them - a good portion of them were using those same devices to engage with and contribute to the BOOM of creepypasta content at the time, which is pretty much what this is.
There were a lot of editing errors in the book (eg. mid-sentence paragraph break on page 1; incorrect use of ‘too’; not enough commas; bibliography on last page had been entered twice), but this was the 2012 version of the book - hopefully the newer version has smoothed these out.
Overall, this was a really interesting read for the varied information on folklore and legends from around the world. Am I convinced that black eyed kids are real? Not at all. But I learned a lot about a variety of urban legends and supernatural forces.
kyrki's review
5.0
Ever since discovering Black Eyed Children a few years back (late-night internet browsing FTW), I've been dying to get more information on them. However, the internet stops being helpful pretty quickly. It's littered with anonymous 'stories' that get pretty repetitive, and the few popular ones pop up over and over.
So when I got this book, I was nervous that it would recap everything I already had read. There was a short chapter dedicated to the stories on the Internet, but other than that, it covered completely new information.
And not only does it discuss theories surrounding the BEK, it dedicates a portion of the book discussing beings from other cultures/throughout history that share similarities to them.
There were a few typos and the spacing was a little jarring at first, but in no way does it interfere with reading the book. And this is coming from me, the girl who edits library books with a pencil.
Overall, this is a must-read for anyone who's interested in paranormal/supernatural non-fiction books.
If you're interested in a copy, you'll probably have to go through the publisher. Amazon doesn't seem to carry it very often, if at all.
So when I got this book, I was nervous that it would recap everything I already had read. There was a short chapter dedicated to the stories on the Internet, but other than that, it covered completely new information.
And not only does it discuss theories surrounding the BEK, it dedicates a portion of the book discussing beings from other cultures/throughout history that share similarities to them.
There were a few typos and the spacing was a little jarring at first, but in no way does it interfere with reading the book. And this is coming from me, the girl who edits library books with a pencil.
Overall, this is a must-read for anyone who's interested in paranormal/supernatural non-fiction books.
If you're interested in a copy, you'll probably have to go through the publisher. Amazon doesn't seem to carry it very often, if at all.
More...