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agrippinaes's review against another edition
4.0
This was quite a nicely done book. There’s a lot of interesting facts and it’s laid out consistently well. It’s tightly written with very few tangents or divergences from the main topic and hand. The structure of the book is quite good, beginning with the history of Halloween from ancient history to the 19th century, then starting to delve into the modernisation of the holiday and its global impact.
I think the best thing about this book is, as I said, is the fact it’s so concise. The author rarely diverges from the major topics of each chapter and gives quite a succinct summary of each one. I did think this worked best early on, when it was the actual history of Halloween that was under discussion; later chapters wandered a little bit and I was underwhelmed by the final chapter focusing on Halloween in popular culture, which I felt deserved a bigger focus. Likewise, I think the book’s focus on race and the LGBTQIA+ community felt a bit superficial and flimsy to the point where I think it would have been best to leave it out (focusing mainly on racism and homophobia was a shame and felt very jarring).
I also thought the book’s ending really damaged the book as a whole – it really needed one final chapter thar rounded up all of the ideas presented and gave a proper conclusion. As it was, they were all shoved into a final paragraph which was so blunt. It read as if the author didn’t know how to finish it and as a result the book felt, well, unfinished.
The subject is interesting, though, and for the most part the writing is very engaging. This is a good introduction to the topic of Halloween and its history, and it definitely got me in the Halloween mood.
Content Notes:
Warnings:.
I think the best thing about this book is, as I said, is the fact it’s so concise. The author rarely diverges from the major topics of each chapter and gives quite a succinct summary of each one. I did think this worked best early on, when it was the actual history of Halloween that was under discussion; later chapters wandered a little bit and I was underwhelmed by the final chapter focusing on Halloween in popular culture, which I felt deserved a bigger focus. Likewise, I think the book’s focus on race and the LGBTQIA+ community felt a bit superficial and flimsy to the point where I think it would have been best to leave it out (focusing mainly on racism and homophobia was a shame and felt very jarring).
I also thought the book’s ending really damaged the book as a whole – it really needed one final chapter thar rounded up all of the ideas presented and gave a proper conclusion. As it was, they were all shoved into a final paragraph which was so blunt. It read as if the author didn’t know how to finish it and as a result the book felt, well, unfinished.
The subject is interesting, though, and for the most part the writing is very engaging. This is a good introduction to the topic of Halloween and its history, and it definitely got me in the Halloween mood.
Content Notes:
Warnings:
Spoiler
References throughout to death, murder, violence, executions, animal cruelty, animal death, human sacrifice, poisoning, harassment, racism, homophobia, use of racist and homophobic slurs.van_worldexplorer's review against another edition
3.0
Cute little book. Easy read. Nothing hugely surprising BUT lots of fun facts that a history lover like me loves. Short and sweet and covers every possible area of the holiday.
emily_gaynier's review against another edition
5.0
i'd love a revised edition with info from the last 12 years
I really like how the author touches on the topics that we might not know about, such as how racism and homophobia were once big parts of halloween. I would've loved a bibliography so I could read more on some of these subjects
I really like how the author touches on the topics that we might not know about, such as how racism and homophobia were once big parts of halloween. I would've loved a bibliography so I could read more on some of these subjects
diamondolc's review against another edition
3.0
I technically DNFed this pretty close to the end because my library loan was due and I didn’t care enough to renew it. It was okay. I thought her seance book was more interesting personally. Nothing wrong with the book itself, but I guess I didn’t really find the contents as interesting as the other one.
geooo's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
2.0
I could have written the exact same book when I was in 6th/7th grade. The writing style is too juvenile and dry for me and at times was a downright slog to get through, so so boring. The second to last chapter about Dias de los Muertos was unnecessary and too dragged out, and the 6th and final chapter just repeated everything that was said beforehand. Should've spent my time reading something better.
livres_de_bloss's review
2.0
2.5
Too American-centric. Too boring.
I skim read a lot of this due to the bland writing style. It reads like a turn of the century periodical for most of the book. It’s more like a laundry list of facts rather than the engaging narrative I was hoping for and the detached, dry writing style did make it a bit of a slog. There were whole sections I skipped over because they were so boring.
That said, some of the observations about current Halloween traditions were really well done and made for much improved reading! I enjoyed the section on Halloween in modern culture (especially the bits about Halloween Haunts).
The other thing that detracted from my enjoyment of this book was how America-centric it was. Halloween is a delightful mish-mash of all sorts of traditions and cultures; this book made it sound like a purely American holiday that was strategically taking over the globe. Weird. I grew up in Canada and could relate to a lot of this book; but Canada was made to sound like a very recent adopter of Halloween which is blatantly false. It was a strange take for a supposedly non-fiction account of Halloween’s roots.
All in all, this wasn’t as engaging or as informative as I hoped.
Too American-centric. Too boring.
I skim read a lot of this due to the bland writing style. It reads like a turn of the century periodical for most of the book. It’s more like a laundry list of facts rather than the engaging narrative I was hoping for and the detached, dry writing style did make it a bit of a slog. There were whole sections I skipped over because they were so boring.
That said, some of the observations about current Halloween traditions were really well done and made for much improved reading! I enjoyed the section on Halloween in modern culture (especially the bits about Halloween Haunts).
The other thing that detracted from my enjoyment of this book was how America-centric it was. Halloween is a delightful mish-mash of all sorts of traditions and cultures; this book made it sound like a purely American holiday that was strategically taking over the globe. Weird. I grew up in Canada and could relate to a lot of this book; but Canada was made to sound like a very recent adopter of Halloween which is blatantly false. It was a strange take for a supposedly non-fiction account of Halloween’s roots.
All in all, this wasn’t as engaging or as informative as I hoped.