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Flaming Iguanas (An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing) by Erika Lopez - Bob Pickett goes along for the ride, on possibly the most unusual road trip you will ever read…

Click here for more info or to order this book When Tomato Rodriguez runs over a cat when trying to learn to ride a Vespa, little does she realise this is going to be the trigger for a life-changing, sexual-orientation confirming and post-office locating journey.

Getting to know the former owner of the cat (no real harm in telling you the cat doesn't make it, but it is always good to get the sad part out of the way) - the pair decide to form a female bike gang and ride across America. Just a couple of problems… Tomato doesn't own a motorbike and even if she did, she doesn't actually know how to ride one… as the cat would testify, if it were still with us.

From this unlikely launch pad follows one of the strangest, multidirectional road trips you are ever likely to involve yourself with. And you will get involved.

Erika Lopez' style of writing is like nothing you have read before. It isn't so much a diary as a rambling, meandering, stream of consciousness. Anything and everything is covered, from the trip itself onto such subject as 'Why Post Offices Are Cool', to 'Why Philly Guys Like to Fuck Doggy-Style' to 'Why Want Ads Are Good' to a whole lot of other things in between.

And the prose is, at times, outstanding:

"We introduced ourselves and followed his faded maroon Camero home. I wondered if this would turn out to be a cheap and wild sexual experience. A man in a '78 Camero, two chicks on bikes. Hey, I'd gone to High School in New Jersey, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure we had the makings of a Bruce Springsteen song.

I wanted my hair high and stiff, just like I wanted my Camero boss…

Oh, baby, we were born to run."

Some of the chapter titles themselves make the read worth it. One of my favourites being 'No Matter How Beautiful You Are, Your Pee Smells Bad'.

Scattered throughout the book are a series of line-drawings and ink-pad stampings which float around, within and outside of the text. Sometimes they appear to be vitally important to the narrative, other times they're there because they look good and occasionally they're just there to, well, be there really. Just like being on the trip itself.

Starting to agree with me that this isn't any normal, run of the mill journey?

Ok, at times the story wanders way too far off the beaten track; you find yourself losing the plot and wondering if the road-trip is ever going to be returned to, let alone end. But the best bet is to just sit in the literary pillion seat, cling on tight to Tomato's waist and let her take you for a ride. You'll get there in the end, but you might not be too sure how you made it.

Does any of this make sense? No? Good - because that is the best way to approach this book. It is challenging, daring, at times offensive, frequently bewildering, but always entertaining. Read this book, find out if Tomato makes it across America, find out why post offices and sex (and possibly both together) are So Very Important.

You might not come out of it a better person, but you'll have lost yourself to a world of laughs, tears smiles and smut for a very enjoyable time.

Interested? Then click here for more info or to order this book

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