“John Winchester’s Journal” by Alex Irvine

My rating: 3/5
Published: 2009 by It Books
218 pages

To be truly honest the book gave me a mixture of displeasure and enjoyment. Do not get me wrong, I truly liked the book, unfortunately I read it from two points of view, one of a Supernatural fan and one of a bookworm. As a fan of the series I definitely recommend all other fans to read it, because it gives you an insight on Sam and Dean’s childhood and basically how they became the hunters that they are today. You also get to know John a little better, although he never goes in depth about anything personal. The best thing would definitely be the accumulated knowledge on the occult and supernatural creatures. But, there is also a downside. I know it is supposed to be a journal, so John had a reason for every research he wrote down, but sometimes it was hard for me to see that reason. In addition to that, there were also some researches you could not possibly understand, unless you speak Latin. My “favourite” journal entry: from 1987(pages 36-41) the whole Rituale Romanum, which had no translation. Also the Enoch/Viking runes had no translation. I am very meticulous when it comes to details and that is what I missed sometimes. The next big thing I did not like reading about was John Winchester’s character, which up to this day I had not paid much attention to. I never realised how selfish and blindly driven by revenge he was. He kept reminding “us” that he became a hunter to revenge his wife, many would say it is a act of love. I disagree. My personal opinion is that, if he had truly loved his wife, he would not have ruined his sons’ future and probably should have given up after 5 or 10 years, since he could not have brought Mary back to life anyway. At some point he should have realised he is not driven by love any more but by revenge. I also disliked John’s choice of dates for his entries, Sam and Dean’s birthdays, his wedding anniversary and Mary’s death, which I found annoying at times, inasmuch as I wished that he wrote more about different things. To summarize it all I did actually like the book with all its flaws. I believe it is a book every Supernatural fan should read, but not so much others, as it would be harder to understand.