Oh, my God do I love this book!!!!
When I was a kid, Choose-Your-Own Adventures were where it was AT. As an adult, I've looked for some, but considering how popular when we were growing up, there are shockingly few of them out there now, both for children and, especially, adults. Where are the authors who read these novels until the pages started to fall off from all the flipping?!
Apparently, there are a few still around, and of the ones I've read, Pretty Little Mistakes is by *far* the best. This is probably due to her resume, which reads like a girl after my own heart; McElhatton has been a staple on NPR, working on The Savvy Traveler, Marketplace, and one of my personal favorites, This American Life, in which she has been involved both on radio and its new Showtime incarnation. Her dry wit and creativity, added to a wicked sense of humor, is apparent in the five hundred pages where you can choose multi-layered path after path.
The novel starts out with one simple choice: to follow a high school boyfriend to college, or strike out on your own. From there, you go through several strange and sometimes disturbing changes, always ending, eventually, with your death. Whether that death comes sooner or later, and is less or more pleasant, is entirely up to you. One time, I died a happy old woman in a beautiful home surrounded by butterflies. Another time, I ended up a 400lb tuna that was caught and turned into sushi. Seriously.
There is a sequel planned to ...Mistakes, called Million Little Mistakes. I will absolutely be getting it when it arrives, and several people on my list will be getting one or the other for Christmas this year.
Rating: Six out of Six Stars; entertaining, vicarious fun for women who wonder, What If?
Thursday, November 6, 2008
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2 comments:
I'm intrigued by this. Swistle reviewed it at Sundry Buzz. I liked the ones for kids when I was in school, but for some reason the concept doesn't appeal so much to me as an adult. BUT now that both of you have raved about it, I might have to reconsider. . . maybe I'll see if the library has it.
I'm totally curious! This is so going on my list. I loved choose your own adventure books as a kid. I had no idea there was anything like that out there for adults!
Thanks for the suggestion!!
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