'Choose your own destiny' books are the most underrated things in the current book market; no one seems to be writing them and those that get written get very limited attention. Recently, a build-your-own-erotica book was published which, although creepy, is really freaking cool!
If you don't know what a CYOD book is, here is a brief explanation:
A CYOD is an adventure book: you decide how the story plays out by turning to different pages depending on what you think you should do. The aim is to find a way to THE end or AN end that suits you by choosing which paths to take; your decisions affect what happens. You could read the same book 20 times and have 20 different endings and completely different ways of getting to the same ending. They're awesome.
2 years ago I received my first CYOD book for Christmas, a zombie themed one called Can You Survive The Zombie Apocalypse? By Max Brallier. Safe to say I loved it, any zombie fan would, due to it's ability to pull on your morals and break your heart as well as make you laugh and scare the life out of you.
Some of my deaths included:
- Heroin Overdose
- Murdered by Hells Angles
- Eaten by a lion
- Bitten by a high school sweetheart
- Murdered in the Nintendo sector of NY Comiccon
- Killing zombie strippers
- Getting stranded on the Statue of Liberty's arm
- Getting a bunch of school kids killed
- Saving those same school kids
- Being saved by some guy dressed up as Legolas from Lord of the Rings
I really think that these kind of books are great; authors like Iain Livingstone have made a career out of writing them (for kids) and I think they just really inspire the imagination and grip you from the outset. The authenticity of this kind of genre is magical and I really love the sense of escapism that comes along with them. Marcus Sedgwick, author of She Is Not Invisible, has just created his own book which is similar to a CYOD but is more of a create-your-own-story kinda thing. There are 4 parts of the book and no matter what order you read them in, they make perfect sense as a story and are all completely different narratives - it's pretty cool!
I can't stress enough just how cool these books are and how we all need to read them so here are a few different suggestions in case you fancy giving them a go!
- Steve Skidmore and Steve Barlow's Hero series (children's)
- A Girl Walks in to a... collection by Helena S. Paige (erotica)
- Fighting Fantasy series by Ian Livingstone (children's)
- Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? by Max Brallier (Adult/scifi)
Has anyone else read any cool CYOD books? I'd love to read some more and am open to suggestions!
Until next time,
Is x
Twitter: @Marvellousshelf
Instagram: @issysmarvellousbookshelf
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