A review by liamunderwood
Apeshit by Carlton Mellick III

3.0

After reading HELP! A Bear is Eating Me! by Mykle Hansen (my first bizarro book) I was still quite eager to sample what else this movement had to offer, despite my lukewarm feelings towards that book. I'd read that Carlton Mellick III was one of the most prolific authors in this movement, and the description of Apeshit - Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) meets Visitor Q (Miike, 2001) - certainly piqued my interest. Those are two films I somewhat like and it's rare to see Visitor Q referenced. Reading Apeshit was a whole lot of fun and i devoured the book in a single day. At times certain things are pushed a little too far unnecessarily - and whilst Carlton Mellick III does attempt to sidestep any criticism of this with his foreword where he namedrops Chuck Palahniuk, I don't quite buy that instead of being shocking for the sake of shocking he's trying to be "interesting for the sake of interesting". However, I should point out that for me these moments of unnecessary extremities were pretty minor distractions from an otherwise solidly entertaining read.

3/5