Fidget Spinners Destroyed My Family

by George Billions

Karen and Kevin have a happy home, with two loving kids and a cat. It’s an idyllic setting, full of laughter and hope, until one Christmas when Kevin gives fidget spinners to each member of the family. He has no idea what destructive consequences this will have.

Getting kicked out of church is just the beginning. Within a year their daughter is in foster care, their son is in jail, and the cat is missing. An even more terrible fate is about to befall Kevin. Karen struggles just to keep it together as fidget spinners crumble the very foundations of her life.

Full of uncomfortable situations and sordid details, Fidget Spinners Destroyed My Family is a suspenseful dark comedy of paranoia, obsession, and this year’s hottest new toy.

Genres: Novella, Horror

137 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 11, 2017

About the author

George Billions is a writer whose work litters the Internet under various pseudonyms. He's written everything from fake product reviews to unqualified fitness advice, steamy romance novels to straight-up keyword spam. Once he had a gig banging out thousands of short biographies of adult entertainers. These days he's trying to put out the kind of stuff he enjoys reading and writing.

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fidget spinners!  What a cute name.  What are they?  Seriously, I'm the last to know, so I'm looking at them on Amazon right now.  Does everybody have one but me?  Soooo cool - I want the metal dragon one.  But I have to be careful.  I just read Karen's story.  Karen is the narrator of this ... what kind of book is this?  The author says it's a true story, but I'm not so sure.  I would maybe put it in the dark comedy department.  If this book was a wine, we would have to ask Karen to define it.  Karen is never without a glass of vino.  She has all kinds, and she carefully explains each one's bouquet.  Some of them date back to the fine year of 2007.  If this book were an IPA, I would call it Janie C's Oh No She Didn't Imperial Mistake.  There's a lot going on in Karen's life.  Her son is accused of being a bully.  The poor kid.  His own father thinks he shot his baby sister with a paint ball gun.  In the FACE!  Where is Dad getting his ideas?  And why is that bimbo in his office smiling at him like that?  Time for more wine.  Karen needs to set everything straight.  If only Kevin (aka Dad) hadn't brought those fidget spinners home as Christmas gifts.  That's when everything started to fall apart.  Don't even ask what happened to the cat.  Really, don't.  I enjoyed the hell out of this book. It's chock full of irony, paranoia and detachable appliances.  If you like to laugh at inappropriate situations and tradgedy, definitely give it a shot.  And maybe get yourself a new fidget spinner.

Many thanks to the author, who provided me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Laurie (barksbooks) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ½ Stars

I’m not sure what that cover is about but that cannibalistic kiddo is not in the book. Sorry, folks. It’s eye catching though, right?

What this book is really about is a family that is on the brink of imploding and we get to witness it in all its glorious ugliness. Yay! From the outside, Karen and Kevin and their two children appear to have a perfectly beautiful upper class life but if you get to snooping and look a little closer you’ll see things aren’t so sickeningly picture perfect. Ah, my favorite kind of story. I love books like this. If you do to, you’ll want to check this one out.

It’s darkly comical, as the best of these types of stories tend to be. Kevin, who is a big kid himself, decides to give the kids (and himself, of course) fidget spinners one Christmas and Karen sees it as the beginning of the end. Of everything. She’s a bit of a dramatic soul. She blames all of her woes on the fidget thingies and refuses to face her true reality. This book is told from Karen’s mostly sloshed POV and she’s a truly terrible person on the inside. Horribly, hysterically, terrible. Her thoughts are often ridiculously bitchy, snooty and mean as well as slightly crazed and I have to admit I loved it there in her head. Granted, no one would probably want to spend too much time there because it would wear on you but this book is only 96 pages. That’s the perfect length of time to spend with someone like Karen, if you ask me.

“I screamed. I tried to help. I tried to save him. Believe me when I tell you, I really tried.”

Lol, I don’t believe a thing this woman tries to tell me but it’s fun listening to her. Please be warned an unforgivable thing happens to an animal. I didn’t like that part at all but that’s the risk you take with books like these.

If you’re in the mood for something blackly humorous grab yourself a glass of Karen’s favorite wine (that would be any and all of them) and settle in for a dark little gem with this novella.

I received an ARC of this story from the author. Thanks, it was a lot of fun!

[Harry Whitewolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story, which seems like quite a simple and straight forward tale on the surface, is brutally clever, and I recommend you don’t read this review or others before reading the book yourself. So… what are you doing still reading this? I can’t recommend Fidget Spinners Destroyed My Family enough, so stop wasting you time reading my version of the truth about this book and instead spend your time reading George Billions’ highly entertaining story.

So, I guess this is the point where I’m supposed to use those words: “Spoiler Alert”.

First off, I’d never heard of Fidget Spinners, despite the toys apparently being the latest hugely-popular craze, but I’m behind the times, so I had to Google them to find out what they were. Also, upon reading the blurb of this book, I had presumed it wasn’t actually a literal representation of the dangers of Fidget Spinners, but then I read an interview with the author where he was talking about the very real dangers of these toys, so I started thinking, ‘Oh – this book is more serious than I had been led to believe’, having originally thought there was a tongue-in-cheekness comic undertone to the dangers of the toys. And then I read the book, and came to completely different conclusions.

Damn, this is a clever story.

It begins with this paragraph: “What follows is a true account of how fidget spinners ultimately brought about the complete destruction of a family. Though names and faces have been changed, every effort has been made to present the story to you in as accurate a way as possible.
May this serve as a cautionary tale.” And the afterword tells you more about how the protagonist Karen first emailed the author of this book, and how he chose to write her story.

I’m guessing that George Billions is a fan of the film Fargo, which begins with the statement: “This is a true story...”

And when you read Billions’ author biography and discover he writes under many pseudonyms and that: “He's written everything from fake product reviews to unqualified fitness advice, steamy romance novels to straight-up keyword spam” and you also discover he’s stated: “If you ask Google who invented the spatula, you get an article I wrote a few years ago about a guy named John Spaduala”, not to mention that his first novel was called ‘Tony the Liar’, you start to get an understanding of what George Billions is all about; and, to me, it makes him feel more like a concept artist like Bob and Roberta Smith, than a mere author.

‘Hey, Harry,’ I hear you cry, ‘enough about the author and perceptions of truth already! What did you think of the story?’ Well, if I’ve heard you correctly, you haven’t been paying attention, ‘cos I’m telling you about the book, and if you don’t pay attention to the book when you read it, you’ll be coming to different conclusions yourself.

It’s perhaps quite challenging for a male author to write a female first-person narrative; at least, it’s challenging to write it extremely well, and Billions succeeds hands down. I marvelled at all the little details he’s added which could easily be overlooked when it’s such an ‘easy read’. It’s also very challenging for a writer to succeed at telling a story from a delusional perspective, where the truth of the story can be found in what the protagonist isn’t saying. That’s why it may be easy for readers to overlook just how accomplished Billions’ writing is. If you don’t pause to think about the undercurrent of this novel, it could just come across as an easy-read and a simplistic story. Dig a little bit deeper and you’ll discover it’s a hell of a lot more.

I’m looking forward to reading more by this author – although seeing as he writes under various pseudonyms, maybe I’ve already read more by him and don’t know it.

4.5 stars.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my house there are 5 fidget spinners, two tiny ones, a red one, a patterned one and one that lights up. We also have a fidget cube but that's a different matter all together. So far our family is still together and alive, the curse of the fidget spinners hasn't hit us yet!

This book is well written, some great characters and a plot that flows really well. The Wife in this story is borderline insane in my opinion, in fact she reminds me a lot of my delusional sister-in-law, it's scary how easily George billions has got into her head. Events are a bit predicable in the story, there are no real shocks, instead you know what is gonna happen and you laugh at how absurd it was.

I have enjoyed reading this and the afterword has me intrigued...could this actually be a true story?

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

FIDGET SPINNERS DESTROYED MY FAMILY, by George Billions, is a book that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone with a slightly warped sense of humor, like mine.

"May this serve as a cautionary tale."

Karen and Kevin have the perfect life, with two beautiful, flawless children. At least, according to Karen, who is the one explaining just how the latest toy craze is responsible for utterly destroying her idyllic world. (Of course, Karen is a connoisseur of fine wines, and may not always be the most reliable after her daily bottle(s).) Karen may also be a little self-indulgent, paranoid, oblivious, and not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed . . . but that shouldn't matter when faced with all that these fidget spinners have cost her!

It all started when Kevin, her husband, gave them each one of the dreadful toys for Christmas. Karen sees it for what it is, of course, an unhealthy obsession. Why couldn't he just appreciate wine as she did?

". . . wished he would pick up smoking or doing cocaine, some adult vice to replace the childish fidgeting . . . "

Before the fidget spinners, Karen NEVER suspected the smiling co-worker in her (unattractive) husband's office of wanting to steal him--despite her having a much better looking husband, herself! And the outrageous lies and accusations about her son being a drug dealer? Absurd! The boy works hard at McDonald's. (Despite her never actually seeing him go out to work, and purchasing $1000 dollar tickets at random). And when her daughter is shot with a paintball gun, the only reason Kevin starts blaming their son is obviously because he has become unhinged due to his new fidget spinner obsession. Why, anyone else (behind a few glasses of fine wine) can clearly see that people are just jealous of her perfect family, and itching to spread these horrid lies about them.

Just don't ask about the cat--seriously, don't go there...

John masterbating in church? Ridiculous! ". . . It really wasn't his fault our church was full of perverts, though. If I hadn't told him not to play with the fidget spinner in church, this wouldn't have happened . . . " (Naturally he was only spinning the toy under his shirt.)

I have to say, that this book came at the perfect time for me. I needed a break from some of the more "serious" books, and Karen's tale of what happened after her husband brought those infernal toys into HER home, was exactly the kind of dark-comedic tale I craved. As I said, I tend to have a warped sense of humor, and this story just hit the right note.

". . . Add in the stress of having my kids stolen from me and I was about to snap on a man dismantling my property . . ."

I loved this book of obsession, paranoia, self-importance, and complete denial when it comes to anything negative said that might taint her family's perfect reputation. The tongue-in-cheek way of delivery certainly makes this book stand out among so many others. A great novella for those with an "open mind" when it comes to humor.

Recommended!

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This read is like one of Karen’s fine wines. A brooding full-bodied damp earth bouquet with soiled astray undertones and a sharp copper-in-your-mouth finish. No need to let this one breathe, it’s beer bong ready! Let’s get it on. And don’t fuck with the ficus.

I really enjoyed the way this one was put together and how the story progressed to slowly reveal Karen’s increased paranoia and delusion. She is a great character. Her sarcastic wit and scathing commentary were perfectly drawn and revealed. I think there may be a wee more going on than just fidget spinners destroying her family’s life. There’s also the family dryer.

This was a solid 4+ Stars and Highly Recommended! I don’t know who the hell George Billions is, but I will be reading him again.

[Rebecca Gransden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firstly, this is an uncomfortable yet compelling read. This is due to the point of view being exclusively from the excruciating place that is the protagonist Karen’s mind. Not a pleasant place to be stuck at all. Severely dissatisfied with the life she’s chosen the sourness of her thoughts infect every judgment she makes in all aspects of her life. To increasingly delusional and worrying levels she sees herself as victimised from everywhere. Her bruised inflated egotism places her at the centre of a world out to get her from all angles, when anyone with even half a mind knows that indifference is baseline. We’ve all known people like this, who talk themselves into importance via persecution. Even if a small percentage of what Karen accuses the world of turned out to be true, her reaction to these slights and disappointments still wouldn’t be anything but misguided. The feeling of being trapped in the psyche of someone consumed by paranoia and bitterness has a strange effect, and whilst reading the detached humour of having to endure this fragmented mind snowballs.

At the beginning of the novella Karen’s husband and daughter bond by fidgetspinning. Soon they are popular online, making goofy videos. Karen views the fidget spinners in her family’s life as a further reason for the dysfunction she sees. For most of the book she’s in heartbreaking denial about the real problems her family faces, and it’s very frustrating to witness her misplace her energies so badly. Her relationship with her husband is particularly strained, where it seems she demands nothing less than absolute reassurance at all times, despite acting as if she has nothing but contempt for the man. Her insecurities regarding their marriage surface in a couple of scenes in particular that are achingly cringemaking to read, and, unable to do the white knuckling essential for any respectful relationship, she only manages to make matters oh so much worse. The final section of the book is very believable in conveying the fractured existence of someone overwhelmed by life, incapable of the clarity needed to navigate a way out of circuitously self sabotaging thinking, and the misremembered and half-truths of heavy reliance on alcohol. For a short book, I found it exhausting.

So yeah, successful in portraying a dissatisfied mind and the progression of that mind unravelling. Enough distanced humour in the writing to save the drudge that is the experience of being in the presence of someone so dreadfully wilfully demanding. And fidget spinners.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

FIDGET SPINNERS DESTEOYED MY LIFE is a true story (allegedly.) It's the story of a dysfunctional family told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator who (problably) misplaced blame for her families issues on the dad,toy, FIDGET spinners. This is the second George Billions book I've read and solidifies (in my mind) his brilliance as a writer.

The first person unreliable narrator is the key element that makes this book shine. You can't tell who is crazy, who has malignant intentions and who is to blame. The dynamic of the story, at its core, is enhanced by the point of view alone.

The story starts a bit slow in the beginning as it develops. Buy as soon as the narrator snaps, its a thrill ride of crazy through to the end. And the ending is one of those ending that will drive you nuts if you're the type of person who needs to have a concrete ending.

FIDGET SPINNERS is great. Coupled with George Billions BUYING ILLEGAL BUGS WITH BITCOIN it stamps a firm style on his work while easily sidestepping the need for genre or labels. He is diverse all while remaining uniquely George Billions. Get on this bandwagon before he gets big!

[mrhh714 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This "true" account of a tragedy that befell a family when the father gifts fidget spinners to each of them for Christmas is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking. And educational​ -- if you enjoy a glass of good wine, every now and then.

[Tyler Spragg · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first this account of a fad like the fidget spinner (and some other factors) corrupting lives feels a little exaggerated, then at some point it switches to all too real. I think there's more than just fidget spinners at work here, but the mechanical whirring definitely persists throughout, as paranoia, drugs, and alcohol create tension between the family.

George Billions, thank you for giving me the opportunity to check this one out.

[Richard Bunning · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a social drama, a psychological dystopian descent, about the self-destruction of a classic mum, dad, two children and cat family. The story slips genre into black comedy and momentarily into horror of the plausible variety, always so much more disconcerting than ghouls and zombies. This is a novella, which a fast reader may well consume in one sitting. The book could easily have been longer, though possibly that would have diluted the constantly disturbing buzz in its pages.
This story is very well written, with clear flowing prose and only a few typos. The story is narrated through the first-person mother with a very realistic feeling voice. I felt that I was sitting listening to the mother’s distressed, sometimes questionable, and less that sober first-hand narrative, rather than, as we are directed to believe, a story cobbled together by the author from episodic conversations.
My only complaint about the story was the abrupt ending. I would have liked to hear the completed story of the family from the tragic peak we are left on. I feel a need to know if disintegration or renovation of the mother to child relationships was the eventual outcome.
I had a sort of personal interest in the story that only added to its poignancy, one that is all too common in western culture. I have lost a parent through the ravages of alcohol. But believe me, such a direct connection isn’t a required ingredient for one to get the full taste of this sad tale.
I have an issue with the cover as on the book at this date, September 2017, in that it really doesn’t reflect the content. The big youthful, blood-smeared, smile gives the impression that one is in for some sort of zany horror comedy. That isn’t the case. Too many books are falsely sold, or not, by misleading covers. This book doesn’t need a creepy cover to sell it, just the publicity it deserves, which I like to think will be boosted by this and other reviews. True or not, the family disassociations and disintegration explored in this social drama are tragically reflected to varying degrees in many real lives.

[Sara Lucinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a crazy little tumble down the rabbit hole. Never read anything by this author before, but he talked me into squeezing him into my busy schedule when he sent me the blurb above. Then when I saw the disturbing cover I knew it was for me.

Karen and her husband decide to get their kids some fidget spinners for their kids for Christmas. Fast-forward a few months and her whole marriage is ruined and both of her children have been removed from her home. And it’s all because of fidget spinners!!

Or is it??

Sometimes painful to read but always enthralling, this story follows the demise of one womans entire marriage in just a matter of months. There is a lot going on in this woman’s life, and she is not helping it one bit by drinking wine to numb her thoughts.

You have to keep turning the pages. You can not put it down until you get to the end.

It’s a well written short story that has no filler and makes for a great afternoon or evening read. Swift disintegration of the family unit in just 96 pages, I’ve honestly never seen anything like it but I loved it! I love when I feel like I am getting a strange peek into other people’s crazy lives, and this one didn’t disappoint me at all. The horrific and abrupt ending really put the icing on the cake.

When I got to the end honestly I wasn’t ready. I wanted more and I wanted to see Karen go even more crazy then she already was.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this! Such an easy read - funny, but serious; cringey, but addictive.

The tale of how a, seemingly, "normal" family, rapidly becomes dysfunctional beyond repair, all over a stupid, plastic, meaningless toy. This is more about obsession, addiction and irrational thinking.

Billions' writing style is very tongue in cheek, but actually has a very worrying reality to it. He claims this is a true story .... it may well be. I don't care if it is or not, I was entertained/shocked/educated.

I would recommend this to everyone. Off to seek out his other works now.

Thanks to the author for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Sandra Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story began with the mayhem and aftermath caused by the fidget spinner. I mean, lost children and fire. I mean, MY GOD! How, in the world, did this start?

It all started at Christmas, when everyone in the family received the hot new toy on the market―the fidget spinner. What started off as innocent obsession soon spells disaster.

Short, simple, and direct, the story is a witty and catastrophic account of one, little toy. Really, the root cause of all the disasters was sheer speculation. Fiddling with a spinner could obviously be mistaken for a utility knife or jacking off. Of course, for me, the interesting part was NOT the stupid spinner that's been all the rage, for some godforsaken reason, but it was the pure domino effect of disasters that ensued with drug addiction, violence, affairs, and whatnots. And it all started out of nothing and mounted into unbelievable proportions. I'm not sure you can really say that the spinners were the cause of all this. I think it was this crazy family's paranoia.

This was just a kooky story, a classic tale of coincidental misfortune. Man, what a wicked and creepy cover!

[Robin Goodfellow · Rating 4 out of 5]

-I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Fidget Spinners Destroyed My Family, by George Billions, is a horror novella detailing the crumbling remnants of a family whose lives were overtaken by fidget spinners.

Karen’s husband, Kevin, decides to give their children fidget spinners for Christmas. At first, the toy seemed harmless enough, and even allowed Kevin and their daughter, Emma, to bond over them. However, soon, their son John gets into trouble, such as becoming involved in illegal drug dealing and masturbating in church. Things deteriorate even further when Karen suspects her husband of cheating on his with a coworker. As her fear gradually starts to consume her, she still refuses to see what is happening around her. Slowly but surely, the family erodes, until the only thing that’s left are traces of memories, where the one constant in their lives are fidget spinners.

To be honest, I didn’t find this as amusing as it probably should have been. The fidget spinners were just a way to see how weak Karen’s family was in the face of adversity. The most glaring detail was how blatantly obvious there was something wrong with Karen, but her utter refusal to see anything beyond her suspicions. She was overtaken by her paranoia, and when she couldn’t take it anymore, she tried projecting her fear onto the fidget spinners. It’d gotten so out of hand that her husband had killed himself trying to construct one. It was particularly heartbreaking to see Emma clinging to her favorite toy, which served as a reminder of the normal life she should have had.

One thing I enjoyed most about the book was how the parents weren’t acting like adults. It was as if with the introduction of the fidget spinners, they began to regress. They started suspecting everyone around them, loved ones and strangers alike, to the point where they allowed their pettiness to tear them apart. It was sad to see, but even at the end of the book they still couldn’t pull themselves together, if only to save their family. They drifted further and further from their normal lives because of it.

On a somewhat humorous note, the anecdote was a bit funny. It had a twisted way of making me giggle, however hard it was to believe. Still, the fidget spinners carried a heavy connotation to them, with the numerous insecurities that Karen and Kevin had. Because of this, I would rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars, and would recommend it to fans of The Die-Fi Experiment by M.R. Tapia, and Drip: A Gothic Bromance by Andrew Montlack.

[Lindsay Gear · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent most of the book thinking "Oh no, Karen... don't!" However, she did exactly what a rational person wouldn't do, and her family paid the price. This is an exciting story about children, the hottest new fad, and family.... stress. What a cautionary tale for today.

[Tommy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bum bum ba dum, bum ba dum ba dum, BAM!

This book is gnarly.

[Dane Mullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Going into this book I was sure it was going to be a fantastical tale about fidget spinners hypnotizing a family or something along those lines. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was about something much more insidious. The decline of Karen's mental state was unexpected and creepy. It was a slow burn but well worth the read.

[Pamela Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Family disintegration

A short novella of a family who on the surface seem fine they could be the non descript clones of suburbia you sit next to at church never really knowing them or the secrets they hide. The fidget spinners did it.

[Rosemarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very clever story of paranoia, alcoholism, mental illness and family breakdown, masquerading as a simple narrative about toys.

[Mark Dappen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather entertaining tale of madness and mayhem.....not great but certainly a good way to pass time....