I can't really write a long drawn out review for this book simply because it is a short Aesop's sort of fairy tale, illustrated and all. However, if you have no aversion to worlds where children are extinct, adults are photocopied into existence as adults, and everyone works mindless drone jobs at huge corporations in a viscous cycle of slave the day away and then spend your money on food, useless possessions, or pet babies -- because that is all the satisfaction you are going to get in life, and so you might as well shove it all up your butt -- then you will love this little absurdist allegory.
Our poor couple just feels so empty that they decide to go a backyard breeder to pick up a pet baby. You can even get a clone baby of someone famous, if you like, and the baby Jesus clones are all the rage. But there is a dark side to this pet trade: the heinous abusers who use the pet babies as anal sex toys, and our loving couple is no different than any of the other Joneses on the block, except their little pet baby Jesus turns out to be something like Chucky.
I have been recommended several of Mellick's books on Amazon, and I can say that as a writer of reactionary literature, he has a gift for using the dark, the disturbing, and the ridiculously offensive to state the obvious when it comes to drawing parallels to the ludicrous idiocracy of our modern world. Nothing in his writing ever seems gratuitous or all that shocking when you stop to think about what he is actually saying. This is high concept at its finest and its most deviant and its most perverse and subversive. It's art with purpose, and I like that ... a lot. Not to mention the illustrations are just wonderful. There are a lot of psychological, theological, and sociological themes being explored here, like the feeling of insignificance we have as just one of the many amidst the masses, or how humans have an innate capacity to pervert and abuse everything we can get our hands on in order to either make a buck or get gratification, or how every human has the subconscious desire to submit to a narcissistic need to "love thyself, plus a whole lot more, and all of the exploration is done quickly, so you have to pay attention. The writing has a deliberate lack of finesse, as if an 8 year old adult wrote it -- oh yea, our main character *is* an 8 year old photocopied adult. My only gripe was with the huge font. I understand it was to mimic a children's book, for obvious reasons, but I think a smaller book size and a denser font would have suited this story a bit better, say for instance a pocket size book, then the author could reduce the price to something more reasonable for its length. If it had been done as a proper children's book with a hard-cover and colour illustrations then it would have warranted a $10-15 dollar price tag.
As for the subject matter, if you think South Park is obscene you might want to pass on Mellick. But if you like dark satire and absurdist humour, with a shot of blasphemy thrown for good measure, then you will love and appreciate this book. Some reviewers likened the thematic approach to Cronenberg, Burroughs, and Lynch. I would have to agree with that. This is hardcore punk literature for sure: definitely intellectual and not for the overly sensitive. Do not molest the Baby Jesus, you have been warned.
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Top reviews from other countries
Martin J
What can I say that the tittle doesn't
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 25, 2019
Tomas Doyle
crap of highest order
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 26, 2014
