What if you . . . Broke all the Rules? by Liz Ruckdeschel and Sara James
Ruckdeschel, Liz and Sara James (2007). What if you . . . Broke all the rules?. NY: Delacorte. 304 pages.
After reading (or attempting to read) this book, I realized that I had lost precious hours of my life that I could never, ever get back. I was drawn to this title’s promise of a “choose you own adventure” story: the cover and back matter indicated that this romance/realistic novel would adhere to the choose your own adventure trope and that readers would be called upon to make decisions for the book’s main character, Hayley. Maybe it’s because I didn’t read the first book in this multi-book series, but, by the time I got a chance to choose whether or not Hayley went to the popular kids’ New Year’s party or hung out with her alterna-friends, I didn’t really care. The protagonist and secondary characters were so underdeveloped, it was hard to make good (read: perverse) choices. Unlike the old fashioned “Choose Your Own Adventure” novels, which were told in the 2nd person and featured you as the main character, this book (and probably this series) assumes we care about the main character in at least as significant a way. Not so. Additionally, unlike the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” series, the consequences of “wrong” choices were not nearly as dire. While, in the old “CYOA,” choosing a wrong door could lead to your tragic and painful death, in this novel, a bad choice required merely that you “hang your head in shame” (yes! These are the exact words from many of the stories’ endings!). The only reason I’m hanging my head is because I invested several hours in this lame title.
Posted on November 13, 2008 at 7:24 am
I had a really similar reaction to this book, quipping to someone after I’d “read” it — “What if you…just didn’t care what happened?” However, I’ve put it and others in the series in the collection at our library because there is this crew of girls there who totally love them. I felt the same way about Schreiber’s “Vampire Kisses” series — it’s never on the shelf, but man, does it suuuuuck (no pun intended). Alas. I suppose there is no accounting for taste.