Bites of Terror: 10 Frightfully Delicious Tales by Cuddles And Rage

I'm not familiar with Cuddles and Rage but apparently they are a husband and wife duo who make these little anthropomorphic dioramas of food and other inanimate entities. I checked out their Instagram page as research before posting my review and the content they post seems consistent with this book. Looking at some of the other reviews for their work, I quickly noticed that some people seemed confused about the audience for this book and others. Even though it looks cartoonish, I would say that the age for this book is probably teen and up as it's pretty disturbing.

BITES OF TERROR reads kind of like a mash-up of Robot Chicken and one of the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Halloween episodes. A cupcake comes to the dilapidated mansion of an evil cake scientist who is in the process of creating something wondrous and terrible, and to pass the time, he tells the cupcake stories ("bites") of horror, ranging from strawberries turning into mold "zombies," to using growing from seedlings as a Pet Sematary-esque allegory for reanimation of the dead, to a story involving marmalade that was right out of something you might see on The Twilight Zone.

I was pleasantly surprised by the stories in this book, which were a cut above some of the other web-to-book cash-ins I've seen as a blogger. The quality of the photographs was excellent but the stories were great too, the perfect blend of twisted and tongue-in-cheek. I'm not surprised that this was published by Quirk Books, as they seem to publish a lot of these sort of "niche" books that end up being so odd and interesting that you find yourself wanting them for the premise alone.

This definitely isn't appropriate for young kids, but adults who like cartoons and teens with a dark sense of humor will probably love this a lot.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 to 4 out of 5 stars