Customer Reviews

Growing Up Haunted: A Ghostly Memoir

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

For many years we have wondered about Hans Holzer. Who was he, the initial paranormal investigator before all others came along. Thanks to his daughter, Alexandra, we now have been given insight into Holzer and his family life. Alexandra gives a clear and concise portrait of her parents, including her mother's decent from royalty, and we are privileged that she has chosen to share her family history with us. A gifted spiritualist in her own right, Alexandra, understood the need for fans of Dr. Holzer to know more about him. Look for her star to rise in the paranormal investigative field because she is chock full of knowledge and spirit. This book was a gift to readers, very well-thought out with deep insight and emotional charge flavoring a childhood quite often very different than one might expect to have. Thank you, Alexandra, for allowing us to get to know you and your family. Your story is both touching and enlightening. The book was terrific and I enjoyed it immensely.

As someone who also "grew up haunted" and who was captivated by the works and research of the famed Hans Holzer from a young age, I found Alexandra's book a fascinating read!! In her personable writing style, what Alexandra does in her "ghostly memoir" is to invite the reader to explore along with her the heretofore little known facts of her fascinating family, and what it was like growing up as the daughter of one of the most famous pioneers of paranormal investigation. While reading this, I actually felt as if I was sitting with Alexandra in a dimly-lit parlor in a casual atmosphere, enjoying refreshments, and that she was flipping through her family archives and personally sharing these stories with me. The reader is truly drawn in, and may often lose all track of time while reading this. Great job Alexandra!!

Wow. This was quite a disappointment.

The "writer" has extremely limited writing skills. She made a jaw-dropping number of obvious grammatical errors on the very first page. Her frequent, awkward metaphor-mixing is comical. I'm generally tolerant of mediocre authorship, but this piece of work is sub-par, with writing errors making it impossible to focus on actual content. The "editor" must have fallen asleep too and that's unfortunate because I was looking forward to an entertaining "haunted" story.

The cover of this book made me want to purchase it, looks mysterious and interesting. Unfortunately, from page 1 it was exactly the opposite. The author 'stories' about growing up were so disjointed and unappealing that it was hard for me not only to read it, but to comprehend it too. It is filled with little known and uninteresting facts about her ancestry that would make a history student fall asleep. And the vignettes about her father doesn't give you any further insight into Hans' life than you would get from a 2 sentence autobiography of him. Recommend you pick up a Hans book immediately and stay away from this one.

I really wanted to read this book but after about three pages I just had to put the thing down. The Grammer was the worst I've ever seen, almost like there had been no editor involved at all. I tried to pick it up again,but could only skip around to a few interesting interviews with her father. But even her commentary was about these was boring and disjointed.
Sorry, I was really looking forward to this one but was very dissapointed.

I was looking forward to reading this book not because I like Hans Holzer because tho I have read most of his books I don't like his style very much. On the other hand his daughter has a great style of writing and is very down to earth with her story the problem is there isn't much in the book that is interesting to the normal reader unless you were family. I didn't care for the family history info that went on and on. Also it seems Mr. Holzer didn't let his daughter in on alot of his goings on or it may have been a really great book. She was always left in the dark being young. I was looking for the haunted house she lived in but there wasn't hardly anything said about that either. I really ended up flipping thru the book trying to find something to read. I also did feel very sorry for her and her sister that she had such a self centered mother and I think that really showed up in the last pages that she discibes why she did what she did and how talented she is. Sorry no cigar on this one.

Somewhere in this odd memoir is an interesting story of growing up with Hans Holzer as a father and a mother of noble European lineage. But this may be the most poorly conceived, written and edited book I have ever read, and that's saying something! I wanted to like this book, as I grew up fascinated by Mr. Holzer's work and publications. Yet I was thwarted in my desire to enjoy the author's unique perspective by the strange juxtaposition of deeply over-detailed histories of her mother's ancestors (who cares that the buildings on a Riga, Latvia street that was named after her ancestor were designed by the architect Mikhail Eisenstein?) with snippets of comments about her father's famous cases and frequent reminders saying "more on this later." Well, why start NOW, then? And why include and launch into long sections of history apparently written by other people in the middle of a first-person narrative BEFORE telling us that that's what's going on?

The terrible sentence construction, clumsy metaphors, and ridiculous grammatical errors (nobody at the publisher noticed that "Baltics" should be plural, not possessive? She wrote "the Baltic's" multiple times) almost seems as if this was written in the author's second language, yet she grew up in New York. I have the feeling she's a fascinating and fun individual, but this book BADLY needed a professional editor.

I really wanted to read this book. Somewhere in this book there is probably a fascinating story if you can get through the incredibly bad sentence structure, horrible punctuation, and bipolar writing style. I've picked it up and tried to read it a few times, but it's such a badly written piece of work that I just can't- so I give up! It is clear that the author never put this work in front of an editor, and because of this her story and that of her father will go untold to many people who might have enjoyed it.

As soon as I picked up this book, I could not put it down. I love the way it is written, with the flashbacks, which are haunting, warm, and revealing and the adorable humor of Alexandra, along with the great interviews. I felt as if I was a part of their family while reading their tales. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more of the great Hans Holzer, Catherine Buxhoeveden, and the strong legacy they came from as well as the one they created. A+ from me!

Lauren

Alexandra Holzer did a wonderful job in writing her memoir. She was gracious in sharing her family history and life experiences with the reader. In addition, it was helpful to obtain background knowledge of the author in understanding what has influenced her beliefs, values, etc. I imagine it would be complex and challenging to grow up with parents who were a paranormal investigator and Countess.

My favorite part of the book was when Alexandra shared her father-daughter moments. This brought to light a side of Dr. Hans Holzer I was not aware of. The historical perspective of the book was touching as she shares her family members' experiences from the past to the present.

Alexandra is the daughter of Hans Holzer and has chosen to spread her wings and fly independently into the paranormal field. I am pleased she will be the next generation to carry on the Holzer paranormal legacy and look forward to reading her future books.