Island Fruit Remedy

by Rich Shapero

Escape with a spurned romance writer and fantasist into an outrageous tropical burlesque, where a cast of metaphorical fruits dares you to surrender to an allegory with deeper resonances. The reward is an unexpectedly sober discovery about the creative act of finding and keeping love. Surrender to an outrageous tropical burlesque about the creative act of finding and keeping love. “Original and thought-provoking. It will leave you in awe.” —Elizabeth Sagan @elizabeth_sagan

Genres: Fiction

292 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2020

About the author

Rich Shapero’s novels dare readers with giant metaphors, magnificent obsessions and potent ideas. His casts of idealistic lovers, laboring miners, and rebellious artists all rate ideas as paramount, more important than life itself. They traverse wild landscapes and visionary realms, imagining gods who in turn imagine them. Like the seekers themselves, readers grapple with revealing truths about human potential. All of his titles—Beneath Caaqi's Wings, Dissolve, Island Fruit Remedy, Balcony of Fog, Rin, Tongue and Dorner, Arms from the Sea, The Hope We Seek, Too Far and Wild Animus—are available in hardcover and as ebooks. They also combine music, visual art, animation and video in the TooFar Media app. Shapero spins provocative stories for the eyes, ears, and imagination.

Reviews

[Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm quite torn on this book. The writing was beautiful, with rich lyrical images that draw you in. However, the message of it didn't sit as well with me. It seems torn between condemning and perpetuating the selfish type of love our main character is stuck in. I found Wood to be a deeply unlikable protagonist due to his entitlement and manipulative nature. He seems to feel he has a right to sex with each of the women he encounters, going so far as to ignore when "Papaya" says no or when Annona expresses disinterest/displeasure at his advances. When "Papaya" has issues with vulnerability or commitment, she is cruel and manipulative, worthy of Wood's hate, and yet we see the same behavior from him throughout the entirety of the novel. The women in this book are either problems or solutions, but very rarely are they characters in and of themselves. [SPOILER] The ending in particular seemed especially manipulative, as he fully expects Gwen to accept him despite the ways he's hurt her and without having any conversation about her feelings or where they are at. He feels he deserves her because of how he has learned in his trance state, and yet, in my opinion, if he had truly learned he wouldn't have assembled a team to essentially bully her into submission (crowding outside her home, telling her they wouldn't leave, yelling her name, and literally bricking her window then forcing her outside). This book certainly made me think, and for that I give it credit, but the points it seemed to make felt a bit contradictory. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the poetic way Wood's self-discovery was described and found the narrative voice strong.

[ellen spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back with what can only be considered his piéce de resistance, 'Island Fruit Remedy' (a novel), Rich Shapero hurls us headlong into what is essentially a tropical fruit brothel. The novel follows a young Hamlet-esque protagonist named Wood along his journey of self discovery, troubled by the indecision of bonking Guava or Papaya. The myriad minor characters such as 'Cool Guy', 'Gwen', or 'Femboy' may on first read appear flimsy and insubstantial, plucked out of the mind of a man perhaps addled with speed, however on ponderation reveal much about the human condition. Noteworthy examples of exceptional prose include: 'her breasts were giant globes with bumpy nipples the colour of dirt'. I loved every page, every irrelavent subplot, every grammatical mistake. The most joy and entertainment I have ever experienced reading a book, it is gloriously awful.

[Ebony · Rating 1 out of 5]

Island Fruit Remedy is creative in its depictions of women as fruit. It’s descriptions of sex with said fruit is original albeit often hard to imagine penetrating non penetrative fruit. It’s discussion of relationships is reductive and borderline dangerous.

I rarely read novels from the perspectives of white men especially ones who get drunk a lot and have sex with everybody. So maybe this is how it goes, but the main character Wood goes hoe-ing and falls in love with everyone he has fruit sex with (cause all the women are fruit remember). His dead mommy and unfaithful ex-wife issues keep him searching so he just can’t get enough “fruit.” I totally lost count of how many there are.

Eventually after lots of sampling, he finds the fruit of his life and cheats on her with another fruit who was pretending to be a fruit that she wasn’t. He’s so angry (that he’s a terrible human being) that he gets rapey and murderous with said woman! I also did not see that coming. Then he decides he wants his life-giving fruit back so he asks his former fruit dalliances to help him and they publicly embarrass her with a damn street parade and break into her house!!! So let’s add home invasion to the rapey and near murderous list. And then she takes him back and they live happily ever after. I can’t.

I literally picked this book up on a sidewalk in Austin. Now I know why someone abandoned it there. I like fruit. I like islands. I thought there would be something redemptive here. I mean, I did enjoy the jungle descriptions—all the green and rain and life-giving nature descriptions, but when the women became these passive, consumable fruit, I enjoyed it a lot less and couldn’t believe the ending even though it’s an ending that men like the write: Man f’s up terribly, women forgive him, take him back, and everything is fine. If that’s your thing, have at the remedy. If not, there’s so much more to read.

[Zoe McClain]

I’m not even going to dignify this one with a rating. If there were a zero star option, I’d go with that.

I got handed this for free at a literature fair, so I guess you get what you pay for. In this case, I ended up getting a poorly written collection of uncomfortable fruit smut, borderline sexual assault, and a grown man suckling the teats of an elderly woman until he sees the magical island fruit sex-god. Also, scorpion people?

[Samantha Noland · Rating 1 out of 5]

Skimmer this book like the last one that I read from him. So weird. Having sex with fruit. I was so confused the whole time.

[LittleBubbleBee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was weird. I liked the concept, the idea of having a bunch of fruit women in this mysterious, somewhat mystical town. It felt very utopian. At the same time, I could sense these women had their own lives and weren't just a masculine fantasy. The part that annoyed me was that this was from a male perspective, who toyed with many women, but always seemed to be able to win them back. I found his character interesting, but wished he had morals, or understood boundaries. He was a bit too much at times. I loved the ending though. I thought it was perfect. I just wish this book felt less like a male fantasy. I liked the idea, but I wish it was done better. The writing was well done though.

[Jonathan Dain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting book. I started this read unsure what to expect and at first I really was not sure where the story was going but over the course of the book i grew to like the overarching metaphore that Shapero was dangling in front of you. Good read overall.

[Samantha Verge · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bought this book for $2 at a book sale. Got 50 pages into the book and the main character started having sex with fruit <3 don’t really recommend it! Xoxo

[Glenn Stenquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wild read

[Cristina Ciborowski Escoffery · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two one star books in a row?! Just my luck. Ok this book was given to me by my college bestie Shreya Ashok, aka the girl who watches true crime to fall asleep, closes her eyes when people kiss on TV, and wants to go into investment banking. Enough said. She bought me this book at an entrepreneurship event called South by Southwest and the author Rich Shapero is actually a venture capitalist who dabbles in writing. Let me tell you, stick to the market Rich. This book was so metaphorically sexual that I couldn't tell you if it was too deep for my little brain to comprehend or if it was all just a load of BS, I'd bet the latter. Anyway, our main character Wood gets his heartbroken and to deal with his impending divorce he moves to Key West and meets a bunch of different women named after fruit who teach him how to self-reflect and come to terms with who he really is through sexual exploration. At the end he literally sucks the teat of a woman names Auntie Coco, like full on latched to her nipple and he transcended worlds. It was so bizarre.
Please only read if you are extremely high, and even then, don't do it.

[Allison T · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is so comedically bad that I’m giving it two stars. Very entertaining read, especially if you have people with whom you can share the weird passages and lines. However, the book basically reads as “it’s okay to cheat on someone as long as you go back to them”, which is not a cool message to be putting out there. Super strange vibes all around, cannot decide how much I disliked this book because it was clearly not meant to be funny, yet it’s so absurd that “funny” is the only way to make it through.

[Isabel Reyes · Rating 2 out of 5]

there’s something hella off w this book + there were literally spelling mistakes

[Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

The one star is for the fact that the idea of women as fruit could’ve been interesting if executed well and by someone different. I did not like the tone of the text: the way the women were described and the descriptions of gay and trans people were unnecessary and offensive. The protagonist, named Wood (disgusting), did not deserve the woman he wanted at the end of the text- he was an extremely unlikeable character with awful morals but was portrayed as a hero for whom we should have sympathy. The descriptions of sex as some soulful experience with fruits in orchards were odd and initially I thought it was intriguing but I’ve decided it is just selfish and as others have said the protagonist was nothing but an annoying, manipulative, entitled white man. The fortune cookies from the Chinese restaurant were clearly an attempt at a leitmotif of some sort which then tie the story together at the end but it all felt off and uncomfortable. Overall, weird book.

[Rudrashree Makwana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get yourself ready to dive into this immersive and delightful world. Wood is in his mid-twenties and he is a writer. Well he used to believe that He and Vadette are twin flames until one day she leaves him and his friend Cameron called him and offered him to stay at his place as he was leaving for Cambodia. Wood was heartbroken but decided to accept his friends offer. There his destiny takes a different turn and his odyssey continues with twists and turns. Read the book further to unveil the island fruit remedy. It was such a delightful and juicy read!!

Will he get over Vadette or destiny has something else in attic for him?

[Daniella · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am dead certain when I say that to this point in my life, this had been the worst book I have ever read by a landslide. 

This book was given to one of my friends for free on her college campus. After reading the reviews, she lent me her copy and I decided to read it for research purposes just to see exactly how bad it was. 

This book (if you can even call it that) is a monstrous amalgamation of everything wrong with this world. Plot aside, the book itself was just bad. There were grammar issues, and the storyline jumped all over the place. At times, I had no idea what was going on. If you can get past that, we get to see the disgusting way he treats and talks about women. 99.9% of the time, when he describes a female character, he just has to bring up what their tits look like. Ok, we get it. You're a tits guy, but genuinely how does this detail play into the plot. On top of this, the main character acts as if he is deserving of sex from every female in this book. And when the girls do not want to give him sex, he throws a tantrum and gets abusive (spoiler: he faces no repercussions for his actions). 

This man fully cheats on his girlfriend, and when she finds out and breaks up with him, he decides to propose to her to get her back (love bombing?). But it's not any regular proposal. This man has to summon the entire town to get his soon-to-be fiance out of the house. Usually, when someone is going to propose, you don't have to pressure the other person and break into their home, but hey, this is Rich Shapiro's world.

We don't even talk about whatever the hell brain rot took place in the last few chapters. This dude drank magical old lady breast milk, and now, suddenly, is having revelations? (old lady breast milk isn't even biologically possible.)(Well, I think all of the biological accuracy was left when he added the scorpion people and fruit sex.)

I get it. People have intrusive thoughts. But there is no need to give these thoughts a physical form by writing them down. And even if you need to write these down for some reason, the last thing you would want to do is take these thoughts, run them to a publisher, somehow get them to agree, mass-produce these ideas, and distribute them to poor college kids.

[Sheryl Basco]

not at all what I expected, but in a good way, I think. This guy Wood is wild and crazy after his split from his wife. He takes off and has some wild encounters with all different kinds of women to find out he didnt know women at all. Once heunderstands that he learns how to treat women and that makes him a better man

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished Island Fruit Remedy and it was like going down a rabbithole where I met a parade of fruit and a weird pink god and a guy who can't seem to get it right, until he does. Had a blast, and learned something about love, how hard it can be to get, and to keep, but how rewarding the real thing can be.

[Mary Tharp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story

[Santhos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good to be honest

[Sharon Kwinjo · Rating 1 out of 5]

not for me

[Anise R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bad

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

an author has his wife break up with him. he is upset. he moves to florida where he encounters various women, comparing each of them to a different fruit.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's just something about a man playing with a bunch of different fruits and simultaneously expecting his #1 to appear that just doesn't sit right with me. I give it a three because it did keep me entertained and sort of confused, but in an okay way ahaha

[B · Rating 1 out of 5]

a terrible book but the memory of reading it brings back fond feelings, such as the smell of fresh fruit i could only have imagined reading this book. unique and uncomfortable