[.ca] Alligators in the Sewer and 222 Other Urban Legends: ... (ISBN 157912061X)

soem of it was brilliant:
ok, so most of the urban legends were a bit lame but some of them...some of them sparkled. i won't give any of them away but look out for the burnt corpse which drowned, the dog leading the soon to be distraught wife and the endless killers/ghosts... great conversation piece.

just what i needed:
For obvious reasons I needed laugh this week. Alligators in the Sewer turned out to be just what I needed. Everyone of these urban legends is a classic and I remembered several of these stories from my childhood. Bloody Mary, the Hairy Hitchhiker, the Killer in the Backseat and of course the grandaddy of all the legends, the Girl Who Keeps Trying to Get Home are all here. I loved it.

Very Neat!:
This is a very good collection of Urban Legends. It doesn't waste time going through lengthly explainations on where these stories originated from, nor does it take the time to debunk them as being untrue--the preface takes care of that. The only thing that struck me as being a little off the subject was the section on paranormal phenomena which I feel is a completely different field altogether that should have not been included in this book.

I love this book =):
This book was a good read, It has a lot of urban legends, some I have heard before, and some I have not. It is easy to read and the stories are short, about a page each. The thing that I think was the "neatest" was in the back of the book, there are some blank pages to write your own urban legends, which I thought was good, because I have heard some that are not in this book, and some I have heard differently than what this book tells, like the Jersey Devil. Anywhoo!! Easy to read, short, cute stories that leave you wondering if they're based on true stories or not!! =)

Fast and Easy Read About Many Urban Legends:
I teased my mother after she bought this book at a used bookstore. I saw the title and thought it was probably some cheesy mess of mindless superstition. Then I borrowed it and read it in a matter of hours. I just couldn't put it down. I was amazed at how many of the stories in the book I had heard before, almost always presented as 100% fact. Such as, "I have a friend of a friend who went to surprise her husband at a party thinking he would be dressed like Zorro..." or "Don't go down to Lovers Lane-- there's an escaped mental patient who waits for young, vulnerable couples." Even more surprising to me was that one of the urban legends had been passed off as fact by the administrators when I was in high school. The rumor had gotten started that gang members were putting AIDS tainted needles in theater seats and pay phone coin slots and my high school's administration sent out a memo to the teachers (I kid you not) to never stick their fingers into a coin slot no matter how badly they needed the change and to be very cautious when selecting a theater seat. Maybe there is some bit of truth that urban legends like that one are based on but I think so often each person who tells the legend embellishes a little more until finally, the finished product is totally wacky. I liked that this book works at dispelling belief in these legends rather than glamorizing them or giving some drawn out backstory on how they came about. If you are looking for something from the historical perspective, this is not the book for you. If instead you are looking for a book that delivers quick information in an entertaining way, this *is* the urban legends book for you.