Book Review: Freaky Folklore: Terrifying Tales of the World's Most Elusive Monsters and Enigmatic Cryptids
Darkness Prevails with Carman Carrion

Rating: 4 Stars

Freaky Folklore by Darkness Prevails and Carman Carrion is a spine-chilling compendium that delves into the history and culture of over 50 terrifying mythical creatures that have haunted human imagination for ages. As a folklore enthusiast, this book was an absolute delight for me.

From the blood-draining Chupacabra to the curse-spawned Jersey Devil, and from the shape-shifting Kelpie to the aggressive Moehau, each monster is brought to life with vivid descriptions, eerie tales, and captivating illustrations. The book also introduces us to the haunting Kuchisake-onna from Japanese folklore and the elusive Dogman reported in Michigan.

I was particularly drawn to the "freaky facts" accompanying each creature, providing intriguing insights into their origins and characteristics. The stories shared in the book were both frightening and entertaining, keeping me engaged from cover to cover. The illustrations added an extra layer of spookiness, enhancing my reading experience.

One of the standout features of Freaky Folklore is its accessibility and readability. The writing is clear, descriptive, and easy to follow, making it a perfect choice for both casual readers and enthusiasts of the macabre. The book strikes a great balance between informative content and entertainment, ensuring that readers not only learn about these beasts but also enjoy the journey through folklore.

Overall, I had a fantastic time exploring the world of mythology through the pages of Freaky Folklore. It's a must-have for anyone intrigued by the darker side of folklore and mythical creatures. I highly recommend this book to those who are looking for a bone-chilling yet captivating read that will leave you wanting more.

⚠️This review was written based on personal opinions and experiences with the book. Individual preferences may vary⚠️

Rating: 4/5
I received a eARC for my honest opinion.

I love all things that have to do with folklore, mythology, and anything that is just creepy. So when I saw this book I knew that I had to read it. I liked that each Cryptid/Monster had a brief history about the creatures and where they’re located. I liked that the author had sections of different creatures for the different continents. Some of the creatures you will read about you might already know about them and their stories, but I even found some that I didn’t know about and found their history to be interesting.

I liked that each creature had their own fictional stories, and I thought the illustrations were well done and fun to look at. I would read another book written by the author again.

I want to thank NetGalley and Wellfleet Press for the opportunity to review this book.

Interesting look at a decent round up of Cryptids! I loved that we covered a global perspective and not just focused on the US. The illustrations were fantastic! Some of the stories got a little similar - it would've been neat to get a snippet of an interview with someone with a real life encounter or an indigenous person sharing the folklore from their culture. Great place to start with Cryptids.

Great book with shirt horror stories for each folklore I love it. I would love to have a physical copy to go through it every once in a while when I want a short scary story to read.
Great descriptions and pictures really enjoyed it!

Nice book full of different folk lore from around the world.
Book is laid out really well with each creature being introduced with where in the world they are, when they were first sighted, what their personality is like and the history of them.

I really enjoyed it and thought it was a good book to dip in and out of when you only have a few minutes to spare for reading

Loved that this included some of the more obscure cryptids and monsters.

The real highlight of this book has to be the illustrations, bringing the creatures to life - the blurb was really more of an accessory.

Absolute joy of a book!

This book has a nice amount of creatures with just enough information without being overwhelmed. The styled layout and illustrations complement this perfectly. It definitely gave me the "feels" I was looking for.

99% of the creatures are malevolent. I love how cultures have their own version of the boogeyman, and that most stories reflect their homeland.

Bigfoot Personality: Extremely Shy
..well, bless his big cotton socks. He warms my heart.

Who I'd most like to encounter: Big Foot, Werewolf

Who I'd rather not: Wendigo, Pishtaco, El Culebron

New Favourite: Adze

Not featured in this book but absolutely terrifying: Onryō (Japan)

Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for allowing me to read and review Freaky Folklore. I enjoyed the artwork, especially the monsters. Freaky Folklore is divided into different areas around the world. It was fascinating to read about different cultures and how they view monsters/myths. The only real "issue" I had with the book is that I could not pronounce a lot of the monsters. It would have been helpful to have a "how to pronounce" under the name.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. I’ve heard of several of these cryptids yet there were several that were new to me. The drawings were great. This book makes me want to delve more into the more unusual ones in this book.

I really liked this one. As someone who is very familiar with “mainstream” cryptids, I appreciated the overview of those creatures.

Each one has a description page and then a brief summary about the sightings and history. The last part of the profile is a tale about an interaction with the beings.

I think for people who are unfamiliar with these tales, it’s easy to read and interesting. A really good starting point.

I was not familiar with all of them! So for me it was really cool to read about new things and I will dig deeper on my own.

The artwork, love it! The organization, great! Content? Could honestly be a little better. I really liked the info parts but once we got to the story for each one that went with the folklore monsters I ended up just skimming/skipping.
I am now very interested in werehyenas and yara-ma-yha-who though.

LOVE this one! For the past two years, I've noticed kiddos in my library have increased interest in cryptids and monsters but I've yet to find as comprehensive (and newish to this decade) a guide as Freaky Folklore. The illustrations are so detailed (and rather creepy) and the information is plentiful. I've also been able to read about so many cryptids and monsters I've never heard of before!

I can't wait to order a few copies of this one for my shelves and I know it'll be adored by monster and cryptid-loving patrons.

3.5 stars
This is an encyclopedia-style book that has entries on cryptids, beasts, and creatures from folktales and urban legends from around the world. It has little illustrations of creatures and a two- or three-page short story about an encounter with the monster (fictional, not from the author’s experience or any recorded account). It seems like the author runs some sort of podcast that talks about cryptids.

I’ve loved mythical creature type encyclopedias as a kid, so this felt like something I’d like, and for what it was, I enjoyed it. The short stories grew a bit repetitive, just because there’s only so much detail you can add about mythical creatures that don’t have a lot of available info so a lot of them ended in the same way. Fifty percent of the story was focused on the Americas and Europe but I appreciate how they got entries from around the world. The references at the end were various internet sites and books, so I don’t think the info here was particularly unique.

Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC!

Freaky Folklore is a beautifully illustrated book about monsters and cryptids all over the world. The book combines freaky facts, fantastic illustrations and short stories.

For me this is a great start for a cryptid / monster encyclopedia type of book but sometimes I did miss a bit of a deeper explanation than the small piece of text about the cryptid but ofcourse, there's not always a lot of information. I also did miss a few cryptids from the list. The references where mostly websites and just a few books. I think this has potential, but it does need a bit more.

I haven't listened to the authors podcast as I'd rather read horror stories than listen to them.

Thanks to NetGalley and Wellfleet Press for the early digital access in exchange for an honest review!

I love anthologies about folklore and creatures, so I had to take a look at this one. The cover is eye catching and the title of Freaky Folklore makes it just right for spooky season.

The cryptid collection, organized by Carman Carrion, is sorted by continents all over the world and takes it's picks from mostly well known creatures to some lesser known beasties.

An absolute highlight for me is how each creature is presented starting with creepy facts which are followed by a short story which depicts each creature's mythology and is rounded up with an amazing illustration, bringing them to live.

As I mentioned above, most of these cryptids are well known if you have a fable for these spooky things but nonetheless I think the beautiful makeup of this book is well worth it to add it to any mythology collection.

Thank you to Wellfleet Press, Darkness Prevails & NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Fun little book. I enjoy reading about cryptids and other spooky things. This book was very much enjoyable.

thank you netgalley for this eARC. this is an honest review.

I enjoyed getting to read about these cryptids but I feel like there were so many inconsistent’s that it took away from all of the stories. I do give a 5/5 for the amazing artwork

**I received an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.**

Darkness Prevails presents Carman Carrion's creature anthology, Freaky Folklore. Carrion organizes the encyclopedic entries by continent, drawing on cryptids and monsters from various myths and legends around the globe. Following each entry is a short story which features the creature discussed. Each entry is also accompanied by a beautiful (horrific) illustration of the creature.

While I have read many creature anthologies, Carrion's stands out due to the short stories that follow. Some are, admittedly, a little cheesy, but they're certainly fun. The art featured is certainly lovely as well. The other thing that stands out here is the true variety of cultures featured. While many cryptozoology collections are heavily European-centric, Carrion's deliberately highlighted stories from around the globe. Now, the representation isn't equal, but it is certainly more than what is common.

I think the most contentious part of this collection will be the short stories. If you prefer to not have the little short stories after, you can skip them (or skip the book, should you choose), but this collection has a good variety and solid informational blurbs.

Overall, I had a fun time with this one and am grateful to have read it early.

As a lover of all things spooky & strange, I was immediately attracted to Freaky Folklore. We all say we don’t judge a book by a cover but this one is truly amazing. This book breaks down various folklore creatures by continent, sharing the origins & legends behind each one. It also includes beautiful artwork, which is sometimes beautifully horrifying (looking at you, the section on Asia’s folklore). But what I really enjoyed about this book were the short fictional stories that were included with each entry. The stories add a unique element that help to bring the creatures to life & are truly anxiety-inducing despite only being a few paragraphs long each (well done!).

This book also introduced me to many legends & creatures I had never heard of before! I might have been today-years-old when I learned that Drop Bears weren’t real… Look, I never looked into them fully & Australia has birds that dive-bomb your head (Magpies), so Drop Bears sounded plausible if all you know is the name ha. So Freaky Folklore gets extra points for the educational value!

Thank you to NetGalley & Quarto Publishing Group/Wellfleet Press for sharing an advanced digital copy for review. All thoughts & opinions expressed are my own, especially my Drop Bear ignorance.

I really liked the illustrations but overall this wasn't for me. It was all very surface level, and while I liked how there was a diversity in the stories it felt wrong and insensitive to centre a white invader when talking about cultures that are not white. Overall this book was very misleading and didn't live up to what it promised, Wikipedia has more substance than this