Suburban Legends: True Tales of Murder, Mayhem, and Minivans

There is a story in the book that i wanted to read in particular, as i've gone down a rabbit hole researching the OG owner of the house and the story behind the house. All the stories are really worth the read. Great job!

I totally enjoyed these short stories. They were spooky, a little crazy and a lot of fun to read. I hope there will be more books like this one.

ok

Suburban Legends: True Tales of Murder, Mayhem, and Minivans by Sam Stall is being re-released as an e-book on October 1, 2013, just in time for some scary October fun. This is one of those books full of brief, easy-to-read stories that, and I'm being honest here, are just plain fun to peruse from time to time. Most of the stories are known and not new to this collection. Not one will make sleep difficult, but several should give you a queasy feeling or at least acknowledging the gross-factor. (Certainly several did when they first came out in the news.) The stories range from traditional stories of ghosts and unexplained phenomena, cryptozoological entities, and urban legends to well-known stories of deranged killers. The collection is divided into seven sections and includes several photos.Contents include:I. INHUMANLY BAD HOUSEGUESTS: The Prime-Time Poltergeist; The Little Girl in the Window; Disturbing Developments; Guess What's Coming to Dinner?; Windbreaker of the Damned; Surreal Estate; The Haunting of 2115 Martingale Drive Ghost Dad; Terror by Design; Light My Fire; Make Room for DannyII . THE GHOUL NEXT DOOR: Historic Preservation; Family Guy; Demolition Man; The Randy Rabbi; The Game of Death; Shreds of Evidence; The House of HorrorIII. HELLISH COMMUTES: Roadside Assistance; Resurrection Mary, Quite Contrary; Close Encounters of the Worst Kind; Death Takes a Holiday Inn; The Dead Zone; The Parkway Phantom; Our Lady of the Savings and Loan; Highway to Hell; The Devil's Lawn Ornament; The Haunted Car; The Spectral Horsemen of Route 895; Making Tracks Through Devil's SwampIV. BACKYARD BEASTS: Leaping Lizards; The Beast of Bray Road; Big Birds; Better Lake than Never; Hello Kitty; The Dover Demon; Attack of the Killer Spores; The Terror of Levittown; The Goatman Cometh; Snakes in a House; The Beast of Sunset CircleV. REALLY DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: Death Becomes Him; The Soccer Mom's Secret; Serial Mom; Love and Bullets; Rest in PiecesVI. LAWN OF THE DEAD: The Backyard Boneyard; Concrete Evidence; Graveyard Shift; Frozen Asset; Army of Darkness; On Dangerous Ground; Home Improvements from Hell; The Vanishing Pattersons; Groundbreaking DiscoveryVII. SUNDRY CUL-DE-SACRILEGES: Ghosts "R" Us; Noise Pollution; You Want Frights with That?; Water, Water Everywhere; The Runaway Retention Pond; Hanging by a Thread; Ho, Sweet Ho; The UFO in the Attic; The Ring; Fly Away Home; Lighting Up the NeighborhoodObviously there are a lot of stories packed into a few pages so no one story is delved into in great detail or new facts researched and exposed. The tone is fun and informative - just a guy sharing some creepy stories with you. As Sam says, "You'll never look at planned communities the same way again."Highly RecommendedExcerpt[...]Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Quirk Books via Edelweiss for review purposes.

I got a copy of this book to review from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This was a decent collection of tales involving ghosts, UFOS, murderers, serial killers and other strangeness all set in suburban settings.The book is broken into seven sections:1. InHumanly Houseguests.2. The Ghoul Next Door3. Hellish Commutes4. Backyard Beasts5. Really Desperate Housewives6. Law of the Dead7. Sundry Cul-de-sacsThe stories are told in a very reporter like style, but with a tone of irony. They all start out by giving the location, date, time, and people involved.The stories themselves are a bit inconsistent throughout. That is to say, some of the legends are debunked and some aren't...some of them are very thoroughly researched and reported on and some are just based on hearsay. Some are quite detailed and lengthy, while others are just quick snippets.I really did not enjoy the first chapter of the book, the one on poltergeists. These stories were extremely repetitive and got very boring to read. The next section on serial killers was much more well done. Maybe it’s because the serial killers are real people and these stories involved a lot more pictures and real data and just seemed much more interesting. There is only so much you can say about poltergeists, since by definition they are all kind of the same phenomenon.I also enjoyed the references to external sources. Like for the snake house, you were given information to look up the YouTube video on The Snake House (which I recommend watching, it’s super creepy). It was kind of nice to be able to go out and get more information on the stories that were interesting to you.The other thing I enjoyed were the pictures. Some of the stories have pictures throughout, they really drive home just how creepy these houses and people are.As with many of these types of books much of what is talked about is only supported by heresay and conjecture. Stall does try to back the story up with facts when they exist. I still found some of the stories to be a bit hokey at times.Overall it is a decent read if you like reading about creepy and unsavory things. It is a non-fiction account (at least as much as ghost haunting and UFOs can be non-fiction). To be honest though you could find out about any of these things by yourself if you did a quick wikipedia search (which I did on a couple of the stories to get more information) and the stories are a bit inconsistent in both quality of writing and content. Still, it’s kind of fun to have all the craziness and creepiness in one book though and would make a great coffee table book or gift for the resident conspiracy or supernatural fanatic in your life.

Quaint, but didn’t think it’d read like newspaper blurbs. Interesting but not sure how much is actually true or relevant.

It was interesting at points, but most of the stories were too short, I would have liked a more in depth account.