Book Review: Lusty Tentacles – Forget Your Typical Romance!

Carlton Mellick III writes stories for fans of the fantastic and the bizarre. If titles like Cannibalism from Lollipop Land, The Orgies of the Ogre, The Haunted Vagina, or I Knocked Up Satan's Daughter ring a bell, you know exactly what kind of wild ride I was in for.

After reading the blurb, I assumed I was in for another mafia story where things go wrong, souls merge unexpectedly, and it all ends with a shootout and a classic "happily ever after." I couldn't have been more wrong…

"Many claim they would love the ability to change gender, but when the process spirals out of control, it's no fun at all."

Lusty Tentacles starts off relatively calmly. I discovered the story takes place in the most mafia-infested city imaginable, and the hero is the adorable fairy-boy Eliot, whose passion is getting tattoos from Oona the tentacle-girl.

The author didn't keep me waiting, and soon I was buried under one action-packed, bloody, brutal, over-the-top scene after another. During the supposed lulls, I was "rewarded" with very unconventional sex scenes (compared to this, 50 Shades of Grey is a total fairy tale for children). These moments were so insane that I found myself enjoying the other layer of the story much more—the one where the author focuses on the unpleasant ailments that plague today's society (e.g., human trafficking, drugs, sexual abuse, etc.).

"A tentacle-girl with six-inch claws and nearly ten-foot tentacles isn't the kind of creature you want as an opponent."

Looking back at the book, it wasn't the plot itself—which had a solid number of plot holes—that kept me reading, but rather the inner world and thoughts of Eliot. The fragility and brokenness of this tiny fairy-boy were the reasons I read the book in one sitting. I just had to know how he would end up.

Bottom line… If you love B-movie stories that make you feel embarrassed for the author (and make you wonder if they're okay or just a total lunatic), then this is the read for you. I need a break from this genre for a while, because I'll be processing this for a long time… 😊

Want to learn more about the bizarro fiction genre? Read this article.

author Adéla Tomanovicsová