Choose Your Own Destiny!

YO YO YO! My post is a day early as I'm off to see Mockingjay tomorrow so there will be no time to blog. I will let you know how it was on Friday :) 

'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

Other element of my adventures:

• 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

It really is the craziest thing I have ever read, seriously. But it's awesome!

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

The Walking Dead Comics

Fight the dead,
Fear the living.

The Graphic Novels! 21 Is Missing *cry* but I'm Buying it Again
Soon!

The Walking Dead graphic novels are something I had wanted to read since I got into the TV show (the show was in it's second season then); finally, when I got my job in the bookshop, I had enough money to start buying them and I have since then spent an absolute BOMB on them since (no regrets though, they're freaking awesome).

For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Walking Dead, aka those who live under rocks, it is the story of county sheriff Rick Grimes who is shot on duty and slips in to a coma. He wakes up in hospital, alone and dazed to find that the world he knows is gone for good and the dead have started to walk. Rick sets out on a mission to find his family who he believes are in the city of Atlanta and upon finding them, he must work with others to try and survive in this new world but if there's one thing you can't do - it's trust other people, they may be even more dangerous than the dead.

SOUNDS COOL RIGHT!?

So I am now up to date with the comic book series and completely amazed by them and how much excitement they deliver in such a small amount of pages. Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Deadiverse, has completely turned the whole zombie apocalypse thing on it's head and stretched the boundaries of our imaginations to the point where it almost becomes real; it's a series you don't want to miss.

People have really slated the show; despite it's success, there will always be people who have to find something to hate about it (yet these are the people who loved Breaking Bad which I really did not enjoy). I guess I see the point of view that those who won't watch it have such as "how can you make 5 series out of a zombie apocalypse? They would pretty much spend every episode running for their lives.". Yes, sure they run for their lives, but it also completely tugs on your morals and shows a lot about what humans can do rather than zombies. It's incredible, it really is.

The show barely even gives you a flavour of the comics though. The first few series took a very different route to the graphic novels and were nowhere near as good whereas season 5 has stayed almost canon with it's plot. So if you've loved season 5...you should read these.

This post has been inspired purely by the fact that I've just read volume 22, A New Beginning, and damn son it was good. I'll just leave you with this little teaser...
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TALKING ZOMBIES.
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SO EXCITING!


So until Wednesday my friends,

Is x
Instagram - @issysmarvellousbookshelf
Twitter. - @marvellousshelf