Synopsis: Eric Nuzum is afraid of the supernatural, and for good reason: As a high school oddball in Canton, Ohio, during the early 1980s, he became convinced that he was being haunted by the ghost of a little girl in a blue dress who lived in his parents’ attic. It began as a weird premonition during his dreams, something that his quickly diminishing circle of friends chalked up as a way to get attention. It ended with Eric in a mental ward, having apparently destroyed his life before it truly began. The only thing that kept him from the brink: his friendship with a girl named Laura, a classmate who was equal parts devoted friend and enigmatic crush. With the kind of strange connection you can only forge when you’re young, Laura walked Eric back to “normal”—only to become a ghost herself in a tragic twist of fate.

Years later, a fully functioning member of society with a great job and family, Eric still can’t stand to have any shut doors in his house for fear of what’s on the other side. In order to finally confront his phobia, he enlists some friends on a journey to America’s most haunted places. But deep down he knows it’s only when he digs up the ghosts of his past, especially Laura, that he’ll find the peace he’s looking for.

Review: When I read the subtitle "A Story About Friendship, 80s Rock, a Lost Scrap of Paper, and What It Means to Be Haunted" while scrolling through review choices, I knew this book required a second look, and selected it! It was definitely NOT what I expected based on that line, but it was better than I expected as well! The book has been linked to

Love Is a Mix Tape (by Rob Sheffield), as a similar vein, sort of Guy Lit, but I think it does the book a disservice.

At it's heart the book is not so much a memoir, as a map of the author's descent

and his fighting back to 'normal', finding himself, and moving on. It is really more about how relationships played into his path, than it is about the music (yes there is ALOT of mentioned of 80s punk music, but it's not as primary as Mix Tape's was. His take on many aspects of the 80's and the cultural differences today was right on and very poignant (example, there is NO way that the Rocky Horror Picture Show would have such a cult following today-in today's world it would have been lambasted, skewed, mocked, enjoyed and spit back out in less than a month, thanks to the internet- it wouldn't last for 20 plus years).

The amount of his friends who died young, also belongs to the 80's (alcohol/drug use much more rampant, lack of cell phones and national 9-1-1 service, AIDS, etc). In today's world, his oddness would have been caught sooner by teachers, and he would have been diagnosed, but on daily meds, and probably stopped seeing his 'ghost' before he even got to high school. As a cross cultural take on differences, the book was interesting, and amusing.

I did have to keep reminding myself it was a memoir, as many times I was rolling my eyes and inwardly yelling at the author to 'buck up' and get 'over it'. His fixation (and like other reviewers I would label obsession) of the ghost and the later his friend Laura, were signs of a personality that doesn't 'see the forest for worrying about the trees', as Grandpa used to say, Hence I was glad it was a short book and a quick read! But there are parallels to today, of alcohol/drug abuse and personality disorders, that makes it a book to read.

About the Author: Eric Nuzum works at NPR in Washington, DC. He is also the author of The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula and Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America. He has appeared on CNN, VH1, and elsewhere.He opines regularly on his Web site, www.ericnuzum.com.

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Disclosure / Disclaimer: I was sent this book, free of charge, for review purposes, from Amazon Vine Review Program. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it.