SLEEPOVER ~ Our Secret Book of Things We Should Not Do

Pushing the limits of game book artistry, SLEEPOVER: Our Secret Book of Things We Should Not Do is a proto-role-playing game exemplar, an experimental art piece, and a genteel horror expression of forbidden sleepover games and pleasantries, articulated by artist, wordsmith, and designer Kent David Kelly.

SLEEPOVER is many things. It is a game (of sorts) of “Let’s Pretend,” an art gallery, a puzzle box, a Gothic coffee table book, a very detailed explanation of subversive party games you absolutely should not dare to experiment with, as well as a darkly delicious corrupting fairytale, revealed to you in the very private correspondence of one Miss Gwendolyn Glory Wight.

Herein you will learn of a secret charm school society, celebrating candlelit and forbidden slumber parties, in invitations and secret missives dealing with slightly naughty occult leanings toward Bloody Mary, Cat’s Cradle, Diary Confessions, Doll Play, Doors of the Mind, Ghost Stories, Hide and Seek, Light as a Feather (Stiff as a Board), Masquerade, Master and Servant, Mother May I, Ouija, Queen of the May, Ring Around the Rosie, Snark Hunting, Tarot Cards, and Mad Tea Parties.

If you — along with savory helpings of absinthe, sugar, and spice — enjoy (to name but a few of the influences) The Addams Family, Alice in Wonderland, Annabelle, The Birthday Massacre, The Bloody Chamber, Books of Shadows, The Brothers Grimm, The Brothers Quay, Tim Burton, Carmilla, CashForGold, The Cell, Coraline, Crimson Peak, Dead Can Dance, The Discovery of Witches, Dorian Gray, Dracula, Erica Jong’s Witches, Goblin Market, Edward Gorey, Emily Strange, Fields of the Nephilim, Froud’s Goblins and Fairies, The Great God Pan, Griffin & Sabine, Halloween, Hocus Pocus, House of Leaves, Imaginary Friends, It, It Follows, The King in Yellow, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, London After Midnight, The Masque of the Red Death, Midsommar, Mourning Garb, The Myth of Narcissus, Neverland, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ophelia, Oz, Pan’s Labyrinth, Penny Dreadful, The Perfect Drug (NIN), The Pre-Raphaelites, Princess Mombi, The Phantom of the Opera, Rasputina, Rule of Rose, Salem Witchery, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Sidewalks and Skeletons, Sleeping Beauty, Sleepy Hollow, Struwwelpeter, The Symbolists, The Vampire and Witch Chronicles of Anne Rice, Victoriana, the Vivian Girls, The Wicker Man, Willy Wonka, Wisconsin Death Trip, Joel-Peter Witkin, or haunted houses, or haunting houses of your very own, you might well indeed find the secret arts of the forbidden Sleepover darkly to your liking.

You are invited. Will you not come and see?

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Another fine and truly curious release from Kent David Kelly and Wonderland Imprints, Only the Finest Works of Fantasy. (168 pages, full color throughout, with 90 illustrative plates.)