Supernatural: John Winchester's Journal

I love that the book talked about the monsters, ghosts, and demons from the show. I also thought that it was cool that an angel from last season, and thus the basis for what is happening this season on the show (Metatron) was mentioned.

I love supernatural and then I found the books and I love it so far. I may have jumped some parts but I always wondered what was in the journal and on I now and got to have more. I like that it had some of the background information. ???

This is from the Kindle edition: While it did fill in some background info on Sam and Dean's early life and growing up on the road, the majority of the book is excerpts from obscure texts describing various creatures and lore. But if you're looking for a recreation of John's journal that the boys constantly refer to, you'll be sadly disappointed. Many long chants and prayers in Latin serve to fill up the pages of this short tome, but little in real "supernatural" insight.

An interesting complication of what John Winchester went through, and the metamorphosis of the Winchester clan into hunters. It would have nice to understand some of the entries in the non-English pages.

I was impressed by the detail and LOVED seeing the personal bits that tie in with certain episodes, for example the entries that show how Dean lost it after Cassie shot him down when he told the truth about himself. Those personal touches sold it so well. A few of the pages that we saw in the show, however, being thrown in, would have made it even more detailed. If they could gone back through screencaps to get the pictures and detailed information from the show journal to include, it would have made it even more "authentic."

This really should have been written as a novel and titled, "John's Story". At least then it could have stood on its own as an interesting prequel. The author seems to be really out of touch with fans of Supernatural for purporting it be John Winchester's Journal, as it's not even close to being the journal from the show. He should have at least gotten a hold of the pages we've seen in the show and included them, and added a blurb from John at the end saying something along the lines of "I'm going to rip out the personal stuff and just give the boys the resource pages". Also, they shouldn't have bothered with the font changes -- that just made some of the sections of the book harder to read. Unfortunately, the publication of this book probably means we'll never get the "real" deal.

After Mary Winchester is mysteriously killed in a house fire caused by a supernatural entity, her husband, John Winchester, becomes completely obsessed with trying to find whatever it was that killed her; and hunting and killing any supernatural creature he finds along the way. Along the way he keeps a journal to make note of important anniversaries and to write down any new information that he learns about all sorts of demons, vampires, and anything else that goes bump in the night.
Overall, the book John Winchester’s Journal written by Alex Irvine was very well written and the journal format made it fairly easy to follow, and provided a clear outlook on what the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings were. Although the climax and resolution of the story would be fairly predictable to anyone who’s ever watched the television show Supernatural, it ended on a very satisfying note, and wrapped up quite nicely with where the television show begins. However, the author included additional factoids about various myths and folklore that abruptly broke up the storyline, and were slightly difficult to get through. Although some readers may have enjoyed these extra tidbits of information such as “Staking. Ash or oak most effective. Rom traditions favor hawthorn.” and felt they added to the story and personal diary motif, I personally felt that they were hard to follow along with, and made me lose my place in the central plot of the story.
All in all I believe this book was successfully written and did an excellent job of showing how the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings became warped by his preoccupation with avenging the death of his wife; and contributed a great background for the show it was inspired by.

While it lacks the "real" looks of the hard-cover it is a very entertaining book, a must for hardcore fans.

As a GM tool for pen and paper RPG based on SN, it has "some" useful information, but Bobby singer's Guide to hunting suits this role much better.