Ocean of Lard (Choose Your Own Mind-Fuck Fest, #17) by Kevin L. Donihe

Ocean of Lard (Choose Your Own Mind-Fuck Fest, #17) Reviews

• 
  Scott

  I bought this book expecting some shocking gonzo weird.
  
  Hoooo, boy. I got it. By the sticky, fishy-scented bucketload.
  
  Having been a childhood lover of choose-your-own-adventure books (Hello, Joe Dever's Lone Wolf!) i couldn't really resist an adult version like Ocean of Lard, especially as the reviews suggested it was pretty in-your face and weird.
  
  Donihe and Mellick's book doesn't hide its aims. Any book that begins with the main character regretfully recounting being caught in the act of child molestation is setting a pretty high shock bar for itself.
  
  I can handle shock. I'm a one time stand-up comic, and a strong believer that there is no topic so taboo that it can't be discussed or joked about - provided it is approached in a nuanced manner.
  
  Nuance is crucial, and it is noticeably lacking here. There's a fine line between good shocking gonzo weird and bad shocking gonzo weird, and Ocean of Lard trips over that line and tumbles down a steep stairwell into the cellar of juvenile grossness and contrived weirdness.
  
  Be prepared for poop eating, dodgy fish sex and a whole load of other grossness that while amusing at first, eventually wears out its welcome.
  
  All of it is sadly in service of a story that doesn't hold up as either a narrative or a choose-your-own-adventure. The decisions you make are largely arbitrary and result in unforseen consequences. The story leaps are haphazard. The many endings are often unsatisfying. As all of these are common to actual choose-your-own books, this works as a sort of satire of the genre, but the story isn't much chop so overall it's not a super enjoyable experience.
  
  The weird stuff gets a little tiring too, as it just doesn't feel like it is tied to the narrative in any meaningful way. Instead it often feels contrived - weird for the sake of it, instead of weird because that's where the story has naturally gone. I don't mind a bit of weird, but the best exponents of the form like China Mieville and Jeff Vandermeer blend their odd concepts and freakish creatures into stories that make you care and take you to interesting places, while here it feels like the weird is all there really is.
  
  There are certainly parts of Ocean of Lard that are funny, parts that are innovative, and parts that send up choose-you-own books really well. As a whole though, it tires quickly, and seems like so much less than it could have been.
  
  
  Two grisly deaths (from what seemed like innocuous choices) out of five.
• 
  Christy Stewart

  I knew things weren't going well when I got to a "The End" and I thought, "I'm okay with that."
  
  Doing an adult version of a choose-your-own-adventure is a great idea but in the end it was more fun to appreciate as a concept than to actually read. The story itself was a little flat but the worst part was that the few choices you were given were just linear A or B decicions. I expected a lot more from the people involved.
  
  I might have found this more entertaining, though, if I hadn't read Super Giant Monster Time! by Jeff Burk first. It was too good. Get that book, not this one.
• 
  Broodingferret

  If Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Manson decided one day to candy flip together and write a choose-your-own-adventure book, something very similar to Ocean of Lard would have been the result. This book is a feverish blob of festering amazingness. An excerpt written on the book's back cover grants a whiff of the fragrant wonders that reside within:
  
  If you board The Eye World, turn to page 21. If you take The Rotten Sore, turn to page 22. But choose wisely! You could find yourself screwing demonic faeries and a cyborg dominatrix on top of a pile of treasure, or you could end up as lunch for a team of floating telepathic walrus heads.
  
  More fun than, while having a similar effect to, a high colonic, Ocean of Lard is marvelously screwed up and should be experienced by anyone with a seriously twisted sense of humor. Just don't eat anything beforehand.
• 
  Kelly

  This book is just sick and wrong, so naturally I thought it was hilarious. Oh c’mon, a surreal twist on one of my favorite types of YA book – choose your own adventure? It had my name written all over it. Poor Edward Packard, I bet he never could have imagined how easily his layout could be corrupted. And thanks be to Thumper for that, because I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard my internal organs almost split. De nada, boys!
  
  Soaring my heart with pleasure while simultaneously stinking up my soul, the plot is deliciously repugnant. Placing you as the main character that is fleeing from the cops because of a criminal indiscretion, you are thrown three choices that even the devil would pity you for. Sorry kids, but no matter which way you choose, it’s not going to be pretty. Believe me, I know, I read that book three times and took three different directions. Each time is different, the pace varying with the path you choose; both are chaotic. I loved it.
  
  Don’t tell me, you feel ill? Well, if you’re going to read this book, I suggest not eating for twenty-four hours. That way, you’ll only dry heave. If you think you can survive the story and the characters, I guarantee you won’t be able to get rid of the nauseating atmosphere. The stench of rot and grease will accompany you throughout the day.
  
  Donihe and Mellick, known for their nihilistic style of writing, combined turn out a story that shows their rebellious ways and anarchistic thinking. The two styles are interchangeable and flawless. There is no break in the book where you can honestly say, “Oh, this is Donihe” or “This is definitely Mellick”. Who knew I’d love cerebral punk so much.
  
  The cast is a round-up of extreme caricature-like reproductions of characters from juvenile books; you know, except for the fact that they are all crazy and demented. The misogynists of society, these players are insane, criminal, and disgusting. This, of course, makes them hilarious – much like watching people fall. Devoid of any and all history, their level of crazy is what makes them memorable. After you read it, you won’t remember the names. You’ll remember that one character saved pirate’s stools –painted it gold- and then either saved it or ate it.
  
  My only problem with the book was the cover. I’m not going to go into description because this is a pg13 site, but let me just say this: Mellick, Donihe – you scarred my children for life. Please send a check for $150 to their therapist. Thank you.
  
  -As posted on Horror-Web
• 
  Teresa

  What fun!!! I had so much fun trying out a bunch of different scenarios with this book. My first story ended MUCH too quickly, although being the mayor of Pirate Town and getting an Academy Award for porn is probably still the best outcome of the rest. Just watch out for the Grokfish.
  I loved that Carlton did part of this and Kevin did the other half. That was a pretty genius maneuver, 'cause when I saw it was co-authored, I wondered how the hell that was possible. Suffice it to say, those guys did a GREAT job splitting the storyline. The first read through was just for fun, but today, I got nitty gritty with it and broke out my post-it notes and dug through this damn book til I read EVERY ending. And it was really fucking fun. You should do it, too!
• 
  Jonathan

  You remember those kickass Goosebumps Choose Your Own adventures you read as a kid, where choosing the wrong path (and there was only one *right* path) would lead to you dying to being turned into a plant or being imprisoned for life or having some other unpleasant fate, with the words "THE END" in bold taunting you each time? And how they'd assume that you were an elementary school boy who liked comic books and horror? Well, "Ocean of Lard" takes that template, but makes it all really fucked up. Instead of assuming you're an elementary school boy who liked comic books and horror, the book assumes that you're a pedophile. Indeed, tThe first sentence is, "You shouldn't have molested all those children." And the unpleasant endings usually involve you getting raped yourself, by pirates, or tentacles, or tentacled pirates, or walrus men. It's pervertedly hilarious if you understand that none of it is meant to be taken seriously. Prudes are discouraged from reading this book, but chances are, if you've seen the cover you'll already know that. This is one of the few cases where you CAN judge the book by its cover: if you think it looks hilarious, you'll love it. If you think it looks sick and weird and stupid, you'll hate it. Myself, this is one I've read aloud to friends for laugh-fests ever since I bought it.
• 
  Casey Babb

  I wish I could get this 4.5, rather than 4, but I can't. No one thinks to make half star ratings for sites like this. Yet scores can average out and equal fractions of a star. Some site will even display like 4 stars, and then a little tiny piece of coloring on the left arm of the fifth star, so you're supposed to guess at what that means... 4.10 stars? 4 and 1/5? Who knows?
  
  I'm not saying I need to vote in 1/5ths, or even in easier-to-manage 1/4ths. I'm just saying halves would be nice. So i could give this book a slightly higher score, while not saying it's the perfect book. It's a really good book, though. Which-Way and Choose Your Own Adventure is awesome, and until now, the only one I owned was some old Batman one I got somewhere. In the Batman one, I got locked in a phone booth (as Batman) and poison gas killed me. In Ocean of Lard, I had cooler options. Stuff Batman would never do... stuff probably even Batman villains wouldn't do. But I did it... in my mind, feeding off of Mellick and Donihe's minds. And i'll do it again. And again...
• 
  Josh Olsen

  I don't know what I could say about this book that wouldn't dissuade somneone away from it. Very light reading, very humorous in a childish way, it's fun, and disgusting, it's a choose your own adventure book with dirty dentata teeth.
• 
  Patrick

  Starts with the line, "You shouldn't have molested all those children," which is great, but that's the sole highlight. I had actually written like 25 pages of a fake "Choose Your Own Adventure" before I heard of this, and trust me, mine will be way better. Nice title though.
• 
  Paul

  I like this book, but cannot recommend it. Reading it will take years off of your life, destroy your faith in goodness, and leave you feeling hollowed out and empty. Kudos to the authors for creating perhaps the single most disturbing read of my entire life.
• 
  David Edmonds

  This is wrong on so many levels, it loops right back around to being awesome.
• 
  Scott

  This sounded like such a brilliant idea that I may have built it up too much in my head. The actual experience of reading it was kind of boring. I'm a fan of both writers but this just wasn't for me.
• 
  Rachel Adiyah

  This is one of the most disgusting things I've ever read, and I've been deep in muck, before. The descriptions are sickening. I guess that you might like it if you really enjoy severe gross-out humor and raunchiness that went beyond funny right into the vomitorium. Otherwise, go straight to Super Giant Monster Time! It's a heck of a lot funnier Ocean of Lard.
• 
  Tim B

  This was a really fun diversion from life. It took me a while to remember the method to be able to read all outcomes. I did it with a lot of bookmarks at the decision points. It is pretty neat how much the authors pack into such short stories.
• 
  Jennifer Aue

  Enough with the bizzaro genre for me.
• 
  Matt Carl

  Some kind of adult "choose your own adventure." Dull tripe.
• 
  C

  Could have been a lot better.