Weird New England: Your Guide to New England's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets Book

I want to start by saying, I READ THE WHOLE BOOK. I emphasize this becauase I wanted to quit so, so many times, but I wouldn't because it's one of the books I actually paid money for, so I was determined not to abandon it. I had to get my money's worth, you know?

I purchased this at an independent bookstore in Burlington, VT on a New England road trip. I want to support independent bookstores, but it's hard to do so when I have stopped buying books unless I've read them and loved them (and then I buy them immediately, not waiting to find a cute independent shop). So I did it! Along with my obligatory sticker or bookmark, I bought this book and lugged it along our road trip, assuming I'd discover even more cool things to see on our trip than I had already put into the itinerary. But it didn't work that way at all.

The book is organized by theme, not by city/state/region, so I couldn't really access all that an area had to offer before I entered it, even by index. I quickly gave up on that and just started to read from page one until the end, as that was how it was written with elaborate introductions and intentional transitions from one story to the next, one chapter to the next. It read like the Reader's Digest. It's simple and hokey. It induced much eye-rolling and lacked any citations or credible research that couldn't be done by just anyone using the internet. Much of it was garbage. Some would make a decent campfire ghost story, and most of it was stuff you've heard everyone in town repeat, such as in Ottumwa, IA, my uncle and EVERY SINGLE PERSON I HAVE EVER MET THERE says, "Down in the hydro, they say there's fish that could kill a man." They say it just like that, everyone, as routine and automatic as a teen responding, "fine" to "How are you?" These authors captured these vague beliefs and stories and re-spun them in their own words, but they're as useful as that bit from Ottumwa, IA. They entertain for a moment. Now, had someone found an article about a man getting eaten or half eaten by a fish, or news articles regarding multiple disappearences near the hydro to back up that claim, I'd be fascinated for quite some time and maybe even dream of experiments to test the theory out, etc. That was how I felt about most of the stuff in this book; it was just unbelieavable hearsay with nothing to back up the claims, but I think I was not the intended reader. The occasional reader on the toilet was probably more the correct audience. It was also offensive in its use of language, such as referring to people as lunatics, freaks, and weirdos, even when talking about populations of people who supposedly actually exist today (like the "melonheads").

At one point, early in our trip, my traveling companion pointed out the whale tales on the cover of the book and said, "Hey! We saw those statues on the side of the highway and wondered about them!" This was BEFORE Burlington, but I am not a visual person and didn't even notice the cover. I quickly used the index to find out about them. Here is exactly what I found (in its entirety): "I was driving to Vermont when I came across this odd and wonderfully weird site. Along the fields and mountains, I came across those "whale tails" on Rt. 89 by or in Burlington. Is it some whale cemetery? All I kept asking myself is WHY?? It made me laugh, and I just wanted to share my road site attraction.--Rose Newton." That's IT. That was all I got. SERIOUSLY? I went online and found the entire history of the whale tales and why they are there outside of Burlington. That's how freaking useful this book is.

So why a 2 and not a 1? It did mildly entertain me at times, and sometimes, just SOMETIMES, I got some real history (like the fact that the founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, was a pretty awesome liberal who was kicked out of Massachusetts for his beliefs--this was the interesting part, not the ghost story about him-- evidence that there was non-native American Indian life in North America from visiting parties outside of the Vikings over a thousand years before them, etc., info about Dr. Whilhelm Reich and the first serial killer with his hotel of death, and information about real, verifiable human beings who created interesting folk art in the 20th century. These things I looked up on my own and learned all about them, the book just igniting my interest. My favorite sections, and most useful, was Personalized Property and Cemetery Safari. These are things I can actually add to a road trip and I'd love to see them, such as the house made entirely of newspapers which is now a museum.

Bottom line: This is no good for inspiring travelers to see weird things on a road trip; it appeals to people who don't crave depth or research in their nonfiction; it may give you good ghost stories and stories of UFO sitings, bigfoot, a loch ness monster type thing in Lake Champlain (come on, now), ghosts, and all kinds of silly creepy tales with no proof of any sort to use to entertain your kids or a group at a campfire. Fun illustrations.

It was okay. I did learn a little, as long as I sought the internet to dive deeper, and that's better than nothing.