Supernatural: John Winchester's Journal Book

Yesterday, I realized the reason Supernatural is my favourite TV show (notice, I'm not saying it's the "best" TV show, this is clearly The Wire and I'll fight you if you disagree) is probably because it's the saddest show I know. Am I that easy to get? Apparently yes.

So, on the surface Supernatural is about two brothers, Dean and Sam, who hunt monsters, demons, fight the devil, are best friends (or more, depending on how feel about the queer-baiting) with a fallen angel, alternately save and accidentally threaten to destroy earth, heaven and hell. I've heard it being described as a horror show, fantasy, Drama, dark fantasy, a supernatural procedural crime show, and it's all kinda true. In the early seasons it was more of "monster of the week" show, before that kind of dissolved into something else. Unlike a lot of people I don't think the show got gradually worse with each season, I think it's hit and miss most of the 13 of 14 seasons I've watched. There are a lot of moments that make me want to scream, when plot lines don't make sense, there's way too many inconsistencies or - most of all - when they just abort the best story lines completely.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say was: while all these genres are accurate, I mainly watch the show as a character study. That might be both the reason why I actually still love the later seasons and why the show frustrates me to no end. Two brothers in their 30s who've literally been to hell and back, who lose all their friends except for that one angel friend Castiel (who's a tragic figure in itself, having turned his back to heaven after choosing Dean above all else), who don't have any sort of stability or normalcy in their lives and who are both mentally not very well. I want to know this kind of stuff. I want to have a look at their fucked up ness through a magnifier. I live my TV like I like my novels: characters first, stories second.

Which is to say, mainly I watch this show for glimpses of a show it could be.

So, why am I talking about this, and what does it have to do with this book?

In the first season of the show Dean & Sam's father John is still alive. This is supposed to be the journal he's written between the death of his wife and his own death. The journal is pretty integral part of the early seasons, and I'd love to have an actual look at the thing - this is clearly not it.

The book is part "facts" about demons, spirits and the supernatural and part his thoughts about hunting cases and his family.

The passages about demons and ghosts and etc are really boring. I ended up skimming them, because they were so dry. Besides, I felt some of the things directly contradicted things said on the show.

The diary part was better, even though I felt the voice was off. It just didn't remind me of John at all. I understand that people can sound more soft-spoken in their diary than in real life, but for that it was also really emotionless. He writes about missing his wife, Mary, and trying to avenge her, but it didn't sound real. The very very short tidbits about Sam and Dean were good and quite sad, especially the ones about Sam, but they were just much too short. They did make me consider giving this book two stars instead of one, but really it's just not enough.

This book also doesn't really make sense as John Winchester's actual journal, because the show makes it clear that Sam and Dean have read the journal, but some of things mentioned in here they don't know until much later (or not at all, I think).

Mainly, this book has made me crave a really good fanfiction backstory chronicling John & Mary's lives.

(Congrats, if you have never watched Supernatural and read all the way through...)