Review: The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III

5 November, 2014 Reviews 28 comments

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The Haunted Vagina is fucking terrible. I don’t mean that the plotline makes it automatically awful (every now and then I read a book for giggles and end up loving it but not this one) and I don’t mean in a haha, this is so ridiculously terrible it’s hilarious (though it absolutely is hilarious). I mean that this book is a shittily written series of loosely connected word clusters I hesitate to call scenes. As far as I can tell, it exists for the shock value of being called The Haunted Vagina and being the ambling story of a girl with a portal to another dimension in her womb and the guy who literally climbs inside to explore it.

How many of you are surprised? If so, go home, you’re drunk.

Because I make seriously questionable decisions and am an unhealthy level of stubborn, I made it through 65% of this god-awful nightmare (40% further than Fifty Shades of Gray!) and I honestly can’t really tell you why. The truly amazing part of this book is how little happens. You wouldn’t think a book titled The Haunted Vagina could be boring, but let me assure you, it really, really is. I made it through over half of the book and all that really happened, aside from a handful of mind-fuckery filled pages, is a dude found out an unusual thing about his girlfriend and then wandered around a strange land looking at trees and shit. This is sixty. five. percent. of a book.

 

Then there’s the writing. My god, the writing. I’ll spare you the quotes, but know that the handful of sex scenes haphazardly scattered around are the most mechanical, sexless recaps of how two human organisms can interlock parts.

An actual quote describing the scenery:

And I’ll never forget the bizarre, rhyming cabin:

And then there’s this gem:

 

Then, just when I was starting to go numb, lost in a sea of clunky, awkward sentences and incredibly unfortunate word combinations, something like this would be coughed up:

And I’d realize I was ultimately attempting to seriously critique a book that features a man climbing, full-bodily, into a woman’s vagina and walking around in there and maybe it’s time to actually think about what I’m doing because somewhere along the way I’d entirely lost the plot.

If you ever hear me say I’m thinking of picking this back up for funsies and to see what happens, tackle me and hold me down until I regain my senses. I could feel my neural synapses giving up and dying. It’s not worth it, I don’t want to know.

28 Responses to “Review: The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III”

  1. Judith

    Wait, this was NOT the great story I thought it was going to be? Damn. So disappointing. The cover is fabulous though.

  2. Christina (A Reader of Fictions)

    “I mean that this book is a shittily written series of loosely connected word clusters I hesitate to call scenes.” <- This is happening to you a lot lately. You make poor yet oddly wonderful choices.

    Awww, you didn't finish. What if it got amazing all of a sudden at 67%? Maybe the great American novel is hidden in there like the portal in her vagina? WHO KNOWS, MEG?

    SLURP. OH MY KANYE.

    FLOWER SWEAT

    MEAT CEILING?!?!?!?!?! Please tell me that's not a vagina description somehow.

    Do not come to me to stop you. I cannot be trusted.

  3. Tammy

    Meat ceiling? It’s like he’s trying to make us hate our vaginas. So much hilarity in this review. Love it!

    I am curious though – what are you planning to read next that could possible top this? 🙂

  5. Mel@thedailyprophecy

    I think it’s pretty impressive you made it to 65%. I let my boyfriend read the synopsis of this book, because I told him I found a book I wanted to get for Christmas. You should have seen the look on his face *snickers*

    • Meg Morley

      When I explained what I was doing to my husband he was like ‘what are you doing with your life? No, I mean seriously.’ Also I think you should absolutely get this book for your boyfriend and then perform a dramatic reading. It’ll be great.

  8. Stephanie

    I prefer bologna curtains. But that’s just me. Please tell me this was self pubbed and that no publisher in their right mind thought this would be a thing.

    • Meg Morley

      BOLOGNA CURTAINS?! My god, what is wrong with people?

      I’m sad to report that this did come from an actual publisher. 30 seconds of google research leads me to believe they will publish anything.

  9. Andye @ReadingTeen

    I was, oddly enough, following someone else who was live tweeting this book. Apparently the horror gets even worse as he falls gets stuck in there after she gets impregnated by another man (he knows this is what happens when he sees a river of semen flowing into the “world”). I’m pretty sure they end up getting stuck inside the baby, and decide they have to wait until she gets old enough to come out of. He also falls in love with some ghosty, or what-not, and many fun times esue. But at least the walkie-talkies end up working. SEE WHAT YOU’RE MISSING?

    Honestly, this book had to be a Dare or something. 😛

  10. La Coccinelle

    OMG. Stop. Please. The laughter… it hurts.

    What a waste of a perfectly good title and premise. Okay, maybe not the premise. But, really, I bet someone could’ve made this absolutely hilarious if it had been done better.

    This reminds me of a YA novel I read where the basic plot was that a demon came to town and influenced everybody to accuse each other of masturbating. They called it “spilling” throughout the book, and there’s apparently some “universal hand signal” for it as well (I’m still not sure what that is; the book never said). The book was supposed to be funny, which was why I read it. It was so not funny. I guess that’s what happens when you try to write genital humour for teens.

    Mind you, judging by this review, it’s not that easy to write genital humour for adults, either.

  13. Julie @ Books and Insomnia

    Oh my gods. I thought I was the only who read this awful book. I didn’t even “actually read” it. I sort of just scanned through the whole thing. This book is a wonder. And I don’t mean that in a good way.