by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
You are the plucky but penniless heroine in the center of eighteenth-century society, courtship season has begun, and your future is at hand.
Will you flip forward fetchingly to find love with the bantering baronet Sir Benedict Granville?
Or turn the page to true love with the hardworking, horse-loving highlander Captain Angus McTaggart?
Or perhaps race through the chapters chasing a good (and arousing) man gone mad, bad, and scandalous to know, Lord Garraway Craven?
Or read on recklessly and take to the Continent as the “traveling companion” of the spirited and adventuresome Lady Evangeline? Or yet some other intriguing fate?
Whether it's forlorn orphans and fearsome werewolves, mistaken identities and devious double crosses, or long lost lover and pilfered artifacts, every delightful twist and turn of the romance genre unfolds at your behest.
So in the great spirit of trying new things, I read a Choose Your Own Adventure romance novel! I've actually been experiencing a little Baader-Meinhof phenomenon with Choose Your Own Adventures, since I was just playing a new CYOA card game I received last week, and Netflix has a CYOA episode I just watched last night. The interesting thing about all these CYOAs popping up is that since each is in a different format, you get a real feel for the limitations and possibilities with each version. I have to say, the card game is by far the worst, as it's reading-heavy, and doesn't have much tension, since a death merely takes you back one step, and everyone playing is doing so as a collective group. CYOA is not something that's really adaptable for multiple players.
The tv show was interesting, not only for the interactivity of it (which was deliberately chosen for NYE entertainment as it kept me awake longer - alas the ravages of old age and a desire for good sleep) but also for the content itself - meta commentary on the lack of free will on the character inside, but revealing that even as you choose for the character, you yourself are bound to the choices presented. What if, for example, I merely wanted the main character to have a nice cup of tea and look into alternative job prospects? Not going to happen, we're going to be murdering people left and right whether you like it or not!
The other downside, of course, in a video version, is that you cannot simply flip back and forth through the pages, looking for the best scenarios and any endings you haven't gotten to yet. And there are happy endings a-plenty in My Lady's Choosing! It succeeds well both as a nostalgic (although apparently increasingly popular) throwback as well as a charming, pleasant romance. I followed the four main paths (which can be loosely broken down as: Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, Scotsman/spies, gothic mystery, and Egyptian caper) and was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it was.
Honestly, I don't read much romance, as I find the sex scenes generally overwrought and the emotions overwhelmingly saccharine and melodramatic most of time, but because the whole CYOA thing is pretty campy to begin with, My Lady's Choosing is perfect fit for the genre. Plus, in the spirit of the old classic CYOAs, the plot never stops for a minute, so nothing drags long enough for you to lose patience with the main character. Obviously, this is a pretty shallow pool, but if you embrace the structure instead of wanting a more traditional story, it's more than fun. I was unexpectedly charmed by the gothic section, which features not only mysteriously widowed men, burned housekeepers, sympathetic postmen, alarmingly attractive vicars, but also vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and young children. I mean, how can you not be entertained by your Heathcliff-inspired swain calling your breasts "Rent Promise" and "Raven's Wing", respectively? And don't worry if those don't appeal to you, "Grecian Urn" and "Sepulcher by the Sea" await if you make different choices.
Look this isn't highbrow stuff and it's not meant to be. At one point in the Scottish storyline, you have the option of helping a mare to foal. If you decide yes, you're told "You and Mac birth the everloving daylights out of that horse. The two of you perform the procedure with such precision, grace, and showmanship that you could have entirely revolutionized veterinary techniques of the early nineteenth century, if only someone had been there taking notes."
It's a winking, campy, breathless trip through all the tropes of regency romance, and no matter what you do, there's a happy ending in wait - even (spoiler!) when you have no other choice but the old gross man three times your age. And frankly, I was getting into the possibilities so much (which includes some lesbian romance as well as hetero, and plenty of endings that don't feature the main four love interests) that I found myself disappointed that we didn't get even farther afield with the endings, like allowing you to get multiple love interests in a single ending. The more the merrier, by the end! You definitely can't subsist only on CYOAs, but as a break once in a while, they're damn fine.
Prompt 42: A "choose-your-own-adventure" book
Jan. 1
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