Haunted Massachusetts by Cheri Revai (Book Review)
Plot: Massachusetts is home to many strange and ghostly stories handed down for generations, from vengeful witches and tragic ghosts to UFOs and monsters. This book tells the best stories of the state by region. Featuring: The Legend of Lucy Keyes, The Dover Demon, The Black Flash, The Lizzie Borden House and North America’s First UFO.
My Review: I live in Massachusetts so I’ve been recently reading some books that tell of local legends and ghost stories. The last book I read was “Weird Massachusetts” and I can’t say I enjoyed it all that much. It was mainly blurbs about SOME ghost stories. But most felt more to be a history lesson if that. They weren’t really ghost stories which is what I wanted in the first place, there was only one small chapter on actual ghosts, and it’s a big book. It also was hard to decipher where the stories took place from time to time. One of my biggest gripes with the book was that the stories weren’t divided into sections by county or town. Thankfully this book is!
Most of the stories I’ve heard before. But hey at least this time around they are actual ghost stories. Unfortunately not many of them were local, but I’m starting to guess that my area doesn’t have very many locally famous legends.
None of the ghost stories really stuck out to me as creepy or spooky or anything. Only one really really held my interest and that was the story of “Charlesgate Hall” which is now a “spirit free” condominium in Boston. It was once a Dorm where many students reported tons of ghostly activity, and it just so happens there were many deaths and suicides in the building. I’d like to know why so many ghost hot spots become condos. There is a “locally” famous abandoned asylum by me that was torn down and turned into condos & apartments. Its not in this book (which is kinda surprising) but you’d never catch me buying or renting one of those places. All those unmarked graves out in the lawn. Yikes.
Overall: While I enjoyed the book and read every story it felt like another let down, MUCH better then “Weird Massachusetts“ though. Most of the stories weren’t all that scary, weren’t from my location, and not even from this century. I prefer modern TRUE ghost stories, and I thought I‘d get some of that considering this book is only about six years old. With that being said the book wasn’t bad, it was semi-interesting and I would recommend it to other Massachusetts residents interested in local ghost stories.
[rating:3.5/5]
