Oh I love this so much. The cover was creepy and the stories was phenomenal!! I absolutely adored this collection!

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!

What a good book!!! Such a great writing style. This was my first by this author and will not be my last! I lived all of the different stories!

As someone who does not believe in any urban legends, and has not kept up-to-date about them except for a few popular ones, reading a compilation of urban legends to use as inspiration would be sufficient for me, and yet this book offers more! The author - fortunately - informs us about the origins, the histories of these legends and adapts/retells the legends. Double inspiration!
4.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this ARC. The views expressed in this review are voluntary and my own.

I think I was expecting this book to be more of an anthology, in the vein of "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark", with some additional notes and history about each legend. However, it reads more like a textbook, often with sections of analysis longer than the actual legend.

Personally, I wanted to be immersed in the stories, let myself get a little creeped out and nostalgic, and learn a bit about the ones I found most intriguing, but the format (at least on Kindle) is so lumped together that skimming is not really an easy option. The legends are also told in a very straightforward format, not embellished to be "stories". This book is more for educational than entertainment purposes.

Still, for what it is, this is a very interesting read, and is clearly a passion project dear to the author's heart. The collection of legends in here is very large, and a lot of effort and detail has gone into the research behind each tale. It was fun to read some legends I'd never heard of before as well.

This book is seriously fascinating! It's like this mega collection of urban legends from all over the globe, plus conspiracy theories and all that juicy stuff. Gail De Vos totally knows her stuff when it comes to these tales, and she dives deep into their origins and how they've evolved, especially in the age of social media.

I was totally hooked by how she connects these stories to our modern lives, like how the internet has totally changed how these legends spread. It's not just spooky tales—there's legit psychological and cultural insights packed in here. Plus, she covers everything from haunted paintings to creepy conspiracy theories.

While I loved diving into all these stories, I gotta say, it's a lot to take in at once. I found myself needing breaks to process all the info jammed into each chapter. Still, if you're into paranormal mysteries or just love a good spooky tale, this book is a gold mine.

Book: The Watkins Book of Urban Legends
Author: Gail de Vos
Publisher: Watkins Publishing
ISBN: 9781786788559
Expected Publication: 12 November 2024
Capone’s Rating: 3 of 5⭐

You may see three of five stars and may assume I’m trying to discourage readers from picking up this volume. I am not. It’s a good book, but it has some glaring flaws that do it a disservice. But ignoring the book would be a disservice to you as a collector of modern myths and legends or as a horror reader or writer aiming to broaden your knowledge base. Folks in any of these situations would do themselves a favor by reading The Watkins Book of Urban Legends.

In this manuscript, Gail de Vos has grouped urban legends, myths, and false beliefs into broad categories (e.g. haunted places, common medical misconceptions, specific haunts not tied to particular places, etc.). The collection is pretty large—are there eighty stories in here? A hundred? A lot, in any case.

Some challenging aspects of de Vos’s approach will challenge any curious reader: is the author offering her best attempt at a true accounting of a rumor? or a true accounting of the common accounting of that rumor? Is the author trying to help us choose correctly morally in retelling others’ tales? Is she trying to correct common misconceptions of popular beliefs? The trouble is, there’s no particular focus here, and it’s sometimes tough to distinguish what thing among these the author is doing in a given section. Is the author offering us what she believes is the true story behind a tale folks have been retelling for ages—its origin? Or is she merely reporting one frequently told variant of the story? It's a challenge to distinguish what goal is being served by which section of text, and sometimes it seems to flip from one purpose to another from one brief tale to the next.

I’m reading an advanced reader copy of this text, and I really hope the editors get it together with the typos, missing words, and poorly phrased sentences. If they let it fly as is, the author—who by and large does an excellent job with this sort of thing—will be badly represented. While dreaming of things I wish were true, I also believe the book would be much better if written by one more accustomed to writing stories as opposed to telling them aloud to audiences in face-to-face scenarios. The word choices, pacing of telling, and written story construction generally is problematic throughout the volume. A writer focused more on craft would provide—well, a better written telling of those tales.

Another odd choice that I hope the publishers catch in a new phase of developmental editing is the decision to include medical misconstruals and myths. Including the section highlights people’s mistaken beliefs about medical practices and pharmacological truths, thereby stretching the notion of popular legends to the point of meaninglessness—any common confusion at all would qualify for inclusion in this volume, if this working definition holds. This section really ought to be dropped from the text in revision.

These challenges aside, I’m glad the author has chosen to collect these stories and offers them to the public domain for retooling and retelling, and I’m glad the publisher is releasing this collection. A lot of us out there in storyland would do well to read it. Three stars.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. While I'm already fascinated by topics like urban legends, myths, and hauntings, I didn't expect reading about them to be so captivating. The author does an excellent job of providing background and various versions of the stories covered. When I started naming my favorites, I realized I was mentioning almost every section, so I had to narrow it down for this review. My favorite sections were about haunted paintings, ghost tourism, ghost lore, cryptids, and creepypastas, especially since they mention one and provide an accurate history of my country. There was one section that didn’t resonate with me due to cultural differences, but it was still well-written and interesting. Overall, this book offers something for everyone, especially if you're into mysterious, paranormal, or curious phenomena. I loved the whole book.

Thank you for this eARC!

A fascinating collection of urban legends—in an expansive use of the word, also dealing with conspiracy theories, hoaxes and scam emails.

I particularly liked the way the author talked of their personal connections to each story. This book was clearly well-researched and covered a vast range of different urban legends. Having read this book, I’m really keen to check out others in the series!

If you're interested in Urban Legends, then this book is for you!

There's an extensive number of legends included within, all with references and source details. There is a lot of information within these pages to the point of saturation.

Overall, this would probably be more of a reference book on my shelf, but I would heartily recommend this to anyone who is interested in Urban Legends.

*I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley, and I'm voluntarily leaving a review.*

I love reading these sorts of books. Finding out about urban legends from around the world, the history, where they started, how they’ve changed overtime with each re-telling.
I’ve read similar books before, but they’ve always been more of a summarised bullet point format. The basics and nothing else.
Where as this one gave me everything I wanted to know and more I didn’t even know I needed!
Would definitely recommend this to everyone.

This was a lot of fun. So many different stories dealing in so many different subjects, people, aspect s of life. The formatting was messy (I read on Kindle) which made reading a bit of a challenge. I also hated the way things were organized.

I would’ve liked much more history or context, and less stiff retellings. I also would’ve edited it down, some of the stories were just too brief to add anything to the reading experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Watkins Publishing for giving me access to an eARC of this book.

I love reading about urban legends and other things that you might’ve read about or heard of yourself. This book did not disappoint. There’s a broad spectrum of different types and I can guarantee that something will be interesting for you as well.

It was also so fun to read about the Swedish haunted tunnel? I did not even know it existed until now.

The one thing that drags it down for me is the amount of information that is crammed into the chapters. I think I would’ve liked more chapters instead of having all these short “stories” all at ones. I had to take a reading break after each chapter to let my brain rest.
I also wish that some of the “stories” were longer. Nowadays I’m almost used to one story getting a chapter for itself, even though I know it’s impossible for this book due to the amount it has.

This book is fantastically written and is a great way to share some contemporary folklore! Gail is clearly passionate about her work and I have enjoyed her previous work as well.

Super impressive and extensive collection of urban legends. Like another reviewer, I thought this was going to be just an encyclopedia situation. Not this collection! It also included different derivatives of the story that you may have heard. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book!

Honestly I thought this was just going to be an encyclopedia style book about urban legends. Boy was i pleasantly surprised!

I love how the author shares their own twists on the stories and legends within. It really hits home with nostalgia for me and helps me remember tales long forgotten so I can tell my children.

The Futher and Futher I got into this book, it reminded me of a collection of jokes. Not that the stories were funny, far from it. But here you have a massive collection of urban legends, stories from throughout the years which someone could use and adapt like the author describes their mother doing and then doing themselves. I don't know if ghost stories are something done by children now, with the rise of social media and tiktok, has the ghost story become more like a dramatic performance, cut up into segments and edits on these platforms? The author does have a piece based on modern urban legends. In any case, I remember quite a few of these and it was interesting to get the authors experience and remember all the times they were told to me in pop culture or by my peers. I found the bloody Mary curse humourous, as now, has the author cursed the reader? And do we have to send their book on to 25 people in order not to be get a visit by bloody Mary? A large collection of stories - whether it was my kindle or the ebook, I would have preferred better formatting however, with the stories sub divided with headings - however it may have just been the ebook I was reading.

The Watkins Book of Urban Legends is a collection of contemporary myths compiled by author and storyteller Gail De Vos. It focuses on modern tales with some emphasis on internet and social media culture.

I loved this book. I only have good things to say about it!

I love how the author encourages others to adapt these legends according to their own experiences. It really shows that she cares about legend itself as a high concept, as oral storytelling—a very popular way for legends to spread—leads into the creation of variation. I also like how it reads casually, with occasional little interruptions like the reader is listening to the author tell these stories in person as the author stated she has lots of experience with. I especially love the historical/cultural/psychological research that accompanies each legend to provide context. It’s fascinating to read how and why these legends are created and evolve (The fears of the microwave, for instance, changing from pets to phones).

It was interesting to see just how many of these legends I’d heard before. It was more than I’d expected, as I realized many times I’d just heard a different variation of them. There is one included about a KFC order being rat instead of chicken, and while I don’t think I’ve heard that tale specifically, I’ve seen memes of the same variety. A lot of these legends have been morphed by meme culture (and a surprising amount were only floating around my brain because of SpongeBob episodes specifically). Stories I thought originated as Creepypastas turned out to be significantly older. Storytelling and legends really show how humans have always been humans.

I enjoyed the legends from other parts of the world than North America. There were especially many from Eastern Asia, namely Japan.

As a lifelong reader of books like this one, I have to extend my recommendation. This collection is highly researched, accessible, and has to be my favorite I’ve read so far. I’ve looked so long for a centralized place with a list like this, and finally I’ve found it. The author, unlike many others in this genre, doesn’t treat her reader as if they’ve never heard of bigfoot (for example). You’ll never feel talked down to or babied. You WILL learn something in virtually every entry. If you’re into urban legends, cryptids, ghost stories, conspiracy theories, or even the history of legends and storytelling itself, this is a great piece to pick up from an author who clearly knows what she’s writing about.