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beccas_bibliomania's review
2.0
Shane and Ryan’s commentary is amazing but besides that it’s pretty lackluster. Most of the stories were already told if you simply watched the show and the writing wasn’t really great a lot of the stories were so hard to understand no matter how many times you reread them. Overall not really memorable but I still love the boys.
callunavulgari's review
5.0
Do yourself a favor. Buy this freaking audiobook. You can buy the physical copy too if you really want, but just know that not putting this in your ear holes is such a horrific mistake. They narrate. It’s great.
ladylizardxvii's review
5.0
Disappointed that there wasn't more memoir to this, but there were parts that were genuinely laugh out loud funny. Learned a lot of about some spooky places, both some I'd heard of before and some that were new to me!
justmevictoria's review against another edition
funny
informative
mysterious
fast-paced
4.0
The Ghoul Boys are back with 101 real spooky tales that will have you looking over your shoulder for ghosts…
Shane and Ryan bring their ghoul hunting and paranormal investigations to the page as they share the stories of 101 haunted locations and tales of cryptids and demons. Some locations we’ve seen the boys investigate first-hand, while others are brand new locations that they haven’t visited. From Haunted Houses, Hellish Hotels, Eerie Institutions, Devilish Drinkeries, and Nautical Nightmares, to Grisly Grounds, Scary Cemeteries, Paranormal Paths, and Ghostly Towns, there are tales from every type of haunted location imaginable. And it’s not just the spooky stories, Shane and Ryan once again inject their much-loved and hilarious banter and commentary into each location - some of it’s relevant to the story at hand, a lot of it isn’t, but that’s why we love it!
BuzzFeed Unsolved, both the True Crime and Supernatural series, along with Watcher’s Ghost Files and Mystery Files, are my comfort watch shows, and I love coming back to those videos, stories and locations time and time again. So having the best ghost hunters in the business in book form is such joy! I love that the book is a nice mix of old and new locations, so you get the familiarity of locations previously visited plus get your interest piqued about locations yet to be explored.
It’s great to have the book not only divided up into chapters of each location, but also sub-sections for the type of location - it makes it super easy to dip in and out of the book by reading whichever story you want, or of course you can read from cover-to-cover.
I actually ended up listening to the audiobook as it’s narrated by Shane and Ryan (alongside Marc Vietor). This actually helped make it easier to alternate between the stories and the commentary - considering Ryan and Shane interject in the middle of literal sentences, it does stutter the flow of the book, but in audio form is flows so much more easily. Plus it’s just fun to actually hear Shane and Ryan banter throughout the book.
I do wish that there had been more history and insight into each location - once you remove Ryan & Shane’s commentary, each location doesn’t really get a great deal of information. And having already learnt about some of these locations from the actual show, we know that there’s a lot more history and stories of hauntings that didn’t make the book. Obviously, the book is covering 101 different locations and stories, so making each chapter more in-depth would have made the book super long, but I just felt like I wanted a little more. In saying that, the book is meant to introduce you to these locations and stories, and if you’re interest is piqued, there’s plenty of further reading if you are wanting to know more.
On top of that, with so many of the locations being ones that Shane & Ryan investigated on the show, I do wish we had been given a little more insight their own experience in those locations. Sure, we have the episodes to watch, but it would have been nice to hear more about those experiences in reference to the history and stories they were sharing about those locations. They did that a little bit, but not a lot and not for all of the visited locations. Obviously, this sort of insight would have been lacking for all those locations they didn’t visit, but it would have added another layer of personalisation and depth to the book.
If you loved Buzfeed Unsolved and Shane & Ryan’s content in general (both BUN and Watcher), then this is definitely a book you’ll want to pick up. And 100% grab the audiobook too to have Ryan & Shane narrate their own commentary.
Shane and Ryan bring their ghoul hunting and paranormal investigations to the page as they share the stories of 101 haunted locations and tales of cryptids and demons. Some locations we’ve seen the boys investigate first-hand, while others are brand new locations that they haven’t visited. From Haunted Houses, Hellish Hotels, Eerie Institutions, Devilish Drinkeries, and Nautical Nightmares, to Grisly Grounds, Scary Cemeteries, Paranormal Paths, and Ghostly Towns, there are tales from every type of haunted location imaginable. And it’s not just the spooky stories, Shane and Ryan once again inject their much-loved and hilarious banter and commentary into each location - some of it’s relevant to the story at hand, a lot of it isn’t, but that’s why we love it!
BuzzFeed Unsolved, both the True Crime and Supernatural series, along with Watcher’s Ghost Files and Mystery Files, are my comfort watch shows, and I love coming back to those videos, stories and locations time and time again. So having the best ghost hunters in the business in book form is such joy! I love that the book is a nice mix of old and new locations, so you get the familiarity of locations previously visited plus get your interest piqued about locations yet to be explored.
It’s great to have the book not only divided up into chapters of each location, but also sub-sections for the type of location - it makes it super easy to dip in and out of the book by reading whichever story you want, or of course you can read from cover-to-cover.
I actually ended up listening to the audiobook as it’s narrated by Shane and Ryan (alongside Marc Vietor). This actually helped make it easier to alternate between the stories and the commentary - considering Ryan and Shane interject in the middle of literal sentences, it does stutter the flow of the book, but in audio form is flows so much more easily. Plus it’s just fun to actually hear Shane and Ryan banter throughout the book.
I do wish that there had been more history and insight into each location - once you remove Ryan & Shane’s commentary, each location doesn’t really get a great deal of information. And having already learnt about some of these locations from the actual show, we know that there’s a lot more history and stories of hauntings that didn’t make the book. Obviously, the book is covering 101 different locations and stories, so making each chapter more in-depth would have made the book super long, but I just felt like I wanted a little more. In saying that, the book is meant to introduce you to these locations and stories, and if you’re interest is piqued, there’s plenty of further reading if you are wanting to know more.
On top of that, with so many of the locations being ones that Shane & Ryan investigated on the show, I do wish we had been given a little more insight their own experience in those locations. Sure, we have the episodes to watch, but it would have been nice to hear more about those experiences in reference to the history and stories they were sharing about those locations. They did that a little bit, but not a lot and not for all of the visited locations. Obviously, this sort of insight would have been lacking for all those locations they didn’t visit, but it would have added another layer of personalisation and depth to the book.
If you loved Buzfeed Unsolved and Shane & Ryan’s content in general (both BUN and Watcher), then this is definitely a book you’ll want to pick up. And 100% grab the audiobook too to have Ryan & Shane narrate their own commentary.
emi_miller's review against another edition
dark
funny
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
4.25