Snap! Crackle! Fuck You!: Simon Oré Molina
Reviewed By Ben Walker
As with so many bizarro titles, you’re either sold based on the book’s name alone, or downright disgusted. Simon Oré Molina’s Snap! Crackle! Fuck You! rooted itself firmly in the former camp for me, as did its cheeky cover, warping the classic Rice Krispies icons into something far more interesting and horrific.
And that’s basically what the plot involves, as the lead character of Lucky the Leprechaun introduces us to the perverted amusement park he’s all but indentured to. This is an adults-only Shangri-La for cereal geeks, a place where the mascots aren’t overheated workers in suits. These poor workers are actually physical mutations, operated on at a genetic level, transformed into literal representations of cereal box characters. Some are more successful than others. And they’re there to please the park’s guests in any way imaginable…as long as they stay in character.
As if that wasn’t horrific enough, Lucky’s girlfriend has gone missing, while the theme park owners – or someone else – test a new batch of mutations with mixed results. Lucky turns to Sugar Bear – a leather daddy transformed into a literal giant bear – for help to crack the case, and as secrets are revealed, things get messier than a toddler’s table at teatime.
This is at its heart a noir detective story, only with fucked-up surgeries, violent sex, dissolving mutants…it’s like a Chandler novel on ‘shrooms. As crazy as it sounds, the plot is a slow burn, but it’s a quick read, as you’re always left wondering what’s around the corner. Lucky guides you along with grim determination, giving backstory through occasional flashbacks to the good old days before he became an enslaved corporate mutant. Those memories flesh things out while also helping you and Lucky make sense of the park’s shady practices, and how they relate to his girlfriend’s predicament.
It’s not an easy ride, mind you. Lucky and Sugar Bear are hindered by colleagues who seem to have accepted their lot in life, and by an ever-deepening mystery surrounding the park’s owners and their strict management team consisting of female versions of Snap, Crackle and Pop. There’s also a sinister security detail called the Soggies; weird, vaguely humanoid jobsworths made of T-1000 style liquid milk. They’re not the only fluids you have to worry about, blood, puke, semen and a whole lot of spoiled milk splatter across the pages. Death, violence and perversion are always lurking in the shadows of the park. It’s wild stuff, always entertaining, but oddly the world starts feeling everyday after a time, making you feel the mundaneness of the place just as much as the horrors it shows (and hides).
As you might expect, there are a lot of digs at corporate bullshit and the horrors of working as a mascot, or in any kind of job you feel bound to. As you learn more about Lucky, you sympathise with his reasons for being where he is, but also you feel that same pull he does, the drive to get out and do something less fucked up. It’s that drive which keeps him hungry for answers, and hopefully, you will be too, only neither you nor Lucky will necessarily like what you find backstage. An unsettling atmosphere is maintained throughout, with the weird, wildly original premise spread out just enough to ensure that the finale still offers a few shocks and surprises.
With at least 95% of your RDA of black humour, and 100% guaranteed to put you off your Pop Tarts, it’s well worth adding Snap! Crackle! Fuck You! to your shopping basket.
Snap! Crackle! Fuck You!
Welcome to Cerealand! A place where adults can relive their childhood desire while indulging in their most perverted fantasies! Our rides are x-rated, our cereal is alcoholic and our mascots aren’t just people in suits – they are genetically mutated and reshaped into your favorite cereal mascots! Isn’t that amazing!? At Cerealand, we are committed to making your experience as nostalgically hedonistic as possible!
Something is rotten in Cereal Land and it’s not just the rancid milk fountains. Things have been going downhill at the Amusement Park ever since the three daughters of Captain Crunch took over. Rides have been breaking down, attendance is low, and strange new mascots are showing up in the park. None of this would bother Lucky the Leprechaun so much, except for the fact that he thinks something might have happened to his ex-girlfriend who’s gone missing. Something to do with all the strange businessmen that have been wandering the park lately. Something to do with the Security Soggies showing up in strange places. Teaming up with Sugar Bear, a leather daddy who helped design the park with Captain Crunch, Lucky hits the back alleys of Cerealand, forcing himself to confront his own demons and past as he ventures deeper into the milky mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Toucan Sam he once loved.
Snap! Crackle! Fuck You! is part of a complete breakfast.
You can buy Snap! Crackle! Fuck You! from Amazon UK & Amazon US
Ben Walker
Ben got a taste for terror after sneaking downstairs to watch The Thing from behind the sofa at age 9. He’s a big fan of extreme & bizarre horror and well as more psychological frights, and most things in between. When he’s not reading, he’s writing, and when he’s not writing he’s on Twitter @BensNotWriting or reviewing books on his YouTube channel, BLURB.
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