Thursday, May 31, 2007

Plot-it-yourself

If you are of a certain age, you may have ravenously devoured a series of children's mystery/adventure novels called "Choose Your Own Adventure". At the end of each short chapter, you are given a decision to make, and the action you choose determines the direction the story takes. And when you finish the first run, you go back and make different choices and get a different story, and you keep replaying your options until you have read every possible combination. I loved those books.
So imagine my delight at finding Pretty Little Mistakes, by NPR regular Heather McElhatton. Just like the kids' books, you are asked to make a choice at the end of each little chapter. The choices are a little different, however, as I find myself becoming the discarded mistress of a sixty-something Italian. Whoops, lets redo that. Now I'm getting shot in the parking lot of an Arby's . Bummer. Try again. Well, actually, none of the endings are really cheery. But I guess that's part of being an adult too. Regardless of the dearth of happy endings, it is so much fun to travel through your imaginary life making irresponsible, outrageous, dangerous choices that I enjoyed every story I conjured up in this book. It seems so easy to live a life when there are no real consequences.

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