Book Review: Blessed Are The Wicked by Steven A. LaChance

Title: Blessed Are The Wicked

Author: Steven A. LaChance

Genre: Non-Fiction, True Haunting, Ghosts & Hauntings

Age Group: Adult

Rating: 1 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Living with a paranormal storm looming on the horizon, constantly feeling the darkness trying to penetrate his soul, Steven LaChance has discovered that the aftershocks of a demonic possession can be more dangerous than the initial haunting itself. Marked by the supernatural trauma inflicted by the Union Screaming House–as chronicled in his first book, The Uninvited–Steven and his family find that no matter where they move, no matter what they do, they are still vulnerable to otherworldly attacks.

As malevolent forces continue their relentless assaults, violent outbursts erupt among the close-knit community that has been touched by unspeakable evil. Fighting for his sanity and his life, Steven records in Blessed Are the Wicked how repressed horror and pain nearly tore his world apart.

Blessed Are The Wicked is perhaps one of the worst true haunting books I’ve read. Why? Because it’s not about the haunting. It’s not about what happened at The Union Screaming House – which, by the way, is barely touched upon – and I, having not read the first book, barely understood what had happened there. It’s not even about the aftermath, about dealing with demonic possession and the occassional resurfacing of demons and ghosts. No. It’s about the author and his family, and that’s mostly it.

There’s not enough about the haunting here, and way too many mundane details about the author and his family. The story itself seems over the top and fabricated – if a house was truly that wicked, it would be worldwide news, especially in today’s era. The author offers little proof for what happened besides his own word (no real search for the history of the house, no other witness accounts). This book reads like a horror movie, or an episode of Goosebumps, except then for grown ups. It’s too over the top not to be fabricated. Even Hollywood is more down to earth when they make horror movies ‘inspired by real events’.

I’m willing to keep an open mind, but when you have poltergeist-like phenomena, demonic possession, satanic rituals in the basement….well, then you know you’ve just stumbled into lalalala-land (aka fiction territory).

The author also has a very black/white view on just about everyone. He classifies people as “good” and “bad” and leaves out everything in between. The writing is boring and sloppy, the author focuses too much on himself instead of on what’s happening, the haunting sounds fake, and all in all, there was nothing scary about it.