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Product Description
Review
“Roald Dahl meets Stephen King in seven warped children’s-story parodies where Coupland’s understated prose is made all the funnier by Roumieu’s gleefully depraved illustrations. With such cuddly heroes as a murderous juice box and an alcoholic, kleptomaniac minivan, the duo take a sly dig at corporate capitalism—think Generation X-cess.” —National Post
“The mind of Douglas Coupland must be a scary place to live…. Those of you who have ever wondered what kind of trouble a Hobo Minivan with Extremely Low Morals can get into can take a soothing breath: the wait is over this month.” —ELLE Canada
“Playful, simple and winking…. Disturbing and hilarious.... A well-executed series of quirky stories that are imaginative and often funny.” —Edmonton Journal
“Anyone who has ever wondered what might transpire if the author of Bigfoot’s autobiography were to illustrate a story collection by Canada’s reigning postmodern ironist can stop wondering.” —Quill & Quire
Book Description
In the grand tradition of Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies, Tim Burton's Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Hillaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children, comes Douglas Coupland and Graham Roumieu's Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People.
Ever wonder what would happen if Douglas Coupland's unhinged imagination met Graham Roumieu's insane knack for illustrating the ridiculously weird? The answer is seven deliciously wicked tales featuring seven highly improbable, not only inappropriate, characters, including Donald the Incredibly Hostile Juice Box, Hans the Weird Exchange Student, Brandon the Action Figure with Issues and Kevin the Hobo Minivan with Extremely Low Morals. If you are over the age of consent, seriously weird or just like to laugh, you'll love the unlovable miscreants who unleash their dark and unruly desires on every page of these unsuitable, completely hilarious tales.
Ever wonder what would happen if Douglas Coupland's unhinged imagination met Graham Roumieu's insane knack for illustrating the ridiculously weird? The answer is seven deliciously wicked tales featuring seven highly improbable, not only inappropriate, characters, including Donald the Incredibly Hostile Juice Box, Hans the Weird Exchange Student, Brandon the Action Figure with Issues and Kevin the Hobo Minivan with Extremely Low Morals. If you are over the age of consent, seriously weird or just like to laugh, you'll love the unlovable miscreants who unleash their dark and unruly desires on every page of these unsuitable, completely hilarious tales.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quick and disturbing!,
By
This review is from: Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People (Hardcover)
I've never read anything by Douglas Coupland. My brother had been an avid reader when I was growing up and I have a couple of his books in my collection, though unread. When I saw trailers and reviews for his latest book, Highly Inappropriate Tales For Young People, I was intrigued. I've always been a fan of the short story and of children's books, so I thought a hybrid of the two for adults? Yes, please! I'm always up to reading something new.While this book was indeed different, I did have to credit Coupland for his uniqueness. It wasn't a laugh-out-loud kind of book for me, but more of an amusing, slightly disturbing read. The only time I laughed was while reading the titles for the stories in the book: Donald, the Incredibly Hostile Juice Box Sandra, the Truly Dreadful Babysitter Hans, the Weird Exchange Student Brandon, the Action Figure with Issues Cindy, the Terrible Role Model Kevin, the Hobo Minivan with Extremely Low Morals Mr Fraser, the Undead Substitute Teacher Each story had something different about it: Donald was indeed hostile, though his story made little sense (how much sense can you really make when you're writing a story about a juice box, though?); Sandra was a terrible babysitter, yet she kept getting babysitting gigs; Hans's story made sense, until I got to the end; Brandon, the action figure, did indeed have issues and Cindy, the Barbie doll, was a terrible role model; Kevin, while having low morals, also had a drinking problem (and a terrible non-moral at the end); and Mr Fraser was undead and hungry. I didn't hate the book, it wasn't a favourite of mine, but I appreciated it. The artwork was alright, though not to the standards of some of the graphic novels I've read, or some of the children's books. But even though the artwork isn't deemed as fantastic, it suits the book. I especially liked the pictures on the front of the book ' of young people who have read the inappropriate tales and are quite disturbed ' and the chicken-scratch writing for the title. The illustrations are childlike and rough, but unique. If you're a fan of Douglas Coupland, or looking for a quick, disturbing read, give this one a try. If you're looking for a humorous read, maybe try something else.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
GARBAGE,
By
This review is from: Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People (Hardcover)
This thing is a "BEST bets" 7 day loaner at the library. Makes you wonder who is paying attention over there. I read maybe 1 or 2 novels a week and I give almost all of them the chance to say something to the reader even when they are poorly written.This book should never have see the light of day never mind been printed. It's not counter culture or shocking or irreverant or humourous or even entertaining -just worthless. Absolutely without value -don't even bother.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Disappointing Tales for Young or People of All Ages,
By James N Simpson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People (Hardcover)
This adult fiction collection of short stories put together to resemble illustrated junior fiction books has some good illustrations and good ideas for short stories, the only thing they seemed not to be able to find is a writer. The stories are more plot ideas with the author not knowing what they wanted their possessed fruit box that likes to kill other fruitboxes, zombie teacher, bad babysitter, possessed homeless minivan and other characters to do. It's almost like the author thought the idea for these stories was good enough to sell the book and couldn't be bothered to spend much time writing them. I mean Brandon the Action Figure With Issues is pretty much the same story as Cindy the Terrible Role model, both basically a possessed toy that decides to have its vengeance on a child who mistreats it in its eyes. According to the inside cover these seven stories are pants-peeing funny. If only the author had put the same effort into adding any humour to the actual stories that he did into the inside cover blurb.There are some brilliant basic illustrations by Graham Roumieu though, but unless this becomes a free Kindle download or something, don't bother with it.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Highly humorous,
By Sam Quixote - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People (Hardcover)
Douglas Coupland tries his hand at faux-children's stories in the tradition of Tim Burton's "Oyster Boy", Tom Baker's "Boy Who Kicked Pigs" and Roald Dahl's "The Twits", teaming up with artist Graham Roumieu to give the reader some contemporary and inappropriate fairy tales for the 21st century.The best ones were set in high school - the weird foreign-exchange student with a grim secret and strange rituals, and the zombie substitute teacher who asks the students to recommend which child to eat. None of the stories though are boring - the GI Joe toy with "issues" when he returns from duty, the Barbie who's crazy, the alcoholic mini-van and the sociopathic juice box. The stories have the feel of a cross between a Simpsons Hallowe'en Special story and a cutaway sketch from Family Guy, with a hint of Coupland's eye for telling detail thrown in. That is to say the stories are entertaining and, especially in the case of the zombie sub, very funny. Don't expect a lengthy read though, as in the tradition of children's stories, even fake ones, the text is a paragraph (large font) to a page with plenty of artwork thrown in. Even for a quick half hour read though, it's good fun and definitely worth picking up. |
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