14 Of The Most Terrible Children's Books: Part 4 (Signed Copy)

14 of the Most Terrible 4: We Have Clearly Stopped Trying to Stop

Volume four exists, which tells you everything you need to know about how the first three performed and absolutely nothing you wanted to know about Brad Gosse's decision-making process. Fourteen more adult parody books, illustrated in the same disarmingly cheerful cartoon style as every previous volume, applied here to subject matter that gets more specific and more uncomfortable with every passing entry. Inside: Child Services, Cinnamon Visits Glue Factory, Cucumber Curtis Can't Come to Dinner, Why Grandpa Sleeps in the Garage, Humpty Dumpty Discovers Workplace Misconduct, Kluckee the Plant Based Chicken, Mixed Animals, Mom Plus Dad Plus Chad Your Parents Have Formed a Triad, Rich Kids They're Better Than You, Santa's Lil Humper Saves Christmas, Sick Pets, Sofa King, Uncle Bob Can't Wait to Show Me His Knob, and We're Not Camping Mom and Dad Lied We're Homeless. Again, these are real titles. Again, we are simply listing them.

Four volumes in and the formula has not changed because the formula was never the problem. It is the titles that keep escalating. Brad Gosse appears to be working through some kind of list, and we are no longer in a position to ask what is on it. This is innocent picture book art doing increasingly heavy lifting for increasingly specific content, and somehow it still works.

This Book Is For You If...

• You own the first three volumes and have stopped questioning why you keep buying these
• You read the title Sofa King out loud just now and immediately understood the assignment
• You want a gift that proves you have genuinely run out of normal gift ideas
• You are completing the set because that is simply who you have decided to be
• You believe Uncle Bob deserves to be read aloud at full volume in mixed company

This Book Is NOT For You If...

• You have not yet recovered from volume three and need more time
• You believe four volumes of this is genuinely three volumes too many
• You are buying gifts for a workplace and have somehow forgotten that fact mid-purchase
• You read the words glue factory in this context and felt something shift inside you
• You are the type of person who alphabetizes complaints before submitting them

Perfect Occasions for This Book

• Completing the collection for the friend who already owns volumes one through three
• White elephant exchanges where everyone now expects you to bring exactly this
• A holiday gift specifically because Santa appears on the cover doing something concerning
• Camping trips, ironically, given one of the included titles addresses that directly
• Anyone who has earned the right to know what Sofa King is actually about

Look, Just Buy the Stupid Book

Same price as a card, vastly more regret per dollar spent. This one gets passed around and somebody always lands on Uncle Bob first, reads the title, and has to sit down. Fourteen books means fourteen separate chances for that exact reaction to happen again at every gathering you bring this to for the rest of your natural life.

Four volumes. No end in sight. Brad Gosse has built an entire catalog out of titles that should not work as well as they do, and volume four somehow proves the format has more room to run. Buy it for someone who has already proven they can handle the first three. Let Brad keep going. He clearly intends to.