Melanie's marvelous measles

[Jacob(smooth)]

I... I just...

NO! FUCKING NO!!! THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!


This is an actual, real book, which has recently been republished. Available on Amazon here.

http://www.amazon.com/Melanies-Marvelous...1466938897

The reviews restore a little faith in humanity. But only a little.

I'm trying to find the words here, but they seem pale and inadequate. This is just so fucked up on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin.

Here is the synopsis

Melanie is off school with measles. Some children in her class are scared of catching measles. One sanctimonious little twit named Jared announces that he won’t catch measles because he’s been vaccinated and that the unvaccinated boy next to him, Travis, is going to die. Travis, while missing the point entirely, still manages to pwn Jared by pointing that, although he hasn’t had any jabs, he’s still alive.

Jared didn’t know what to say to that!

Melanie’s friend, Tina, goes home and asks her mother about measles. She is told that,

For most children it is a good thing to get measles…Many wise people believe measles make the body stronger and more for the future,


We learn that Tina is unvaccinated because when her old brother, Sam, got jabbed he was very sick afterwards and, although he apparently recovered enough to lead a normal life and go to football training after school, he now has a “weak immune system”.

Having been persuaded that getting measles is just about the most fun a child can have, Tina wants to visit Melanie so she can catch measles. Her mother thinks that’s a “great idea”. (I assure you I am not making this up; it really is in the book.)

They visit Melanie who, as it turns out, was vaccinated and yet managed to end up with the “worst case of measles the doctor had ever seen”. But Melanie is proud of her big spots and can’t wait to show them to her friend. She says they’re not itchy or hurty at all and she is quite well enough to be up playing with her dolls like a proper little girl.

Tina and her mother take her some carrot juice and melon, so that Tina’s mother can give readers a mini-lecture on the importance of Vitamin A, probably picked up from some quack magazine.

I read that if your body has plenty of Vitamin A, you won’t get measles…

Happily, Melanie gets better and Tina laments that she didn’t catch measles. Cue another lecture from Mum about the benefits of her healthy lifestyle of raw food, exercise, sunshine, etc.

The totally unexpected twist, of course, is that the smugly vaccinated Jared does get measles. Tina isn’t a bit surprised, given all the sweets and other crap he eats. We’re not told as much but presumably all those sweets he’s been eating is the reason why Jared doesn’t seem to be enjoying his measles nearly as much as Melanie and is lying in bed looking miserable instead of up and playing happily with a train set or something.

In spite of the story ending abruptly with Tina expressing the hope that one day she’ll be “lucky enough to catch measles”, she says nothing about visiting poor Jared.

Serves him right, I guess