Thalia @ Pictures in the Words

That’s right, folks. This is a choose-your-own-adventure novel! I didn’t even know people still wrote these. I still remember spending hours upon hours just trying to survive a reading of Give Yourself Goosebumps. (I don’t think I ever did make it to the end alive, no matter how many times I went back and choose differently.)I’m not really sure what to make of this. I certainly would never choose to review a novel like this–I came home, and there it was, sitting in my mailbox, with a nice little sticker from the publisher. And since I’m (mostly) caught up with other review requests and ARCs I’m supposed to get through, I decided what the heck? (Now that was a snap decision.)Honestly, this took me maybe half an hour. I thought I would first go through picking what I thought I would actually do, and then go through again and pick everything the opposite of what I would do. But even then, this read maybe took me half an hour. So I went through a few more times and tried different combinations. I’m sure I didn’t go down every possible path, but I got enough of a gist for the book as I could in order to decide how to rate and review it. Bridie Clark is a pretty funny writer–sure, the second-person is really weird, but I can tell that if she wrote a “normal” novel, it’d be really funny and engaging. If she decides to write something that isn’t a choose-your-own-adventure book, I’d definitely read it! However, that’s the real downer about this–it’s a choose-your-own-adventure novel. It screams third-grade, and the whole “adventure” takes you through maybe one night. None of the endings I ran into actually had consequences, but just ended the night with the vague promise of tomorrow. Not terribly exciting. But still–it was fun while it lasted.An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.Read more?