Rating: WARTY!
This was one of those do-it-yourself stories, where you would, were it a print version, be directed to turn to page X if you want to do Y or turn to page Z if you chose to do B. I was curious as to how this would work - or even if it would work - in an ebook, and the book was free, so despite the story not interesting me, I picked it up. It was aimed squarely at women, although the gay male or bisexual communitiers might find some fun here. I had to persuade this guy Nick to fall for me - so I wasn't remotely impressed by the story, which was YA pap and you pretty much - it seemed from the parts I read - had to basically lay yourself out on a plate if you wanted Nick to like you.
Well, guess what - it turns out that I'm not that kind of a girl, so no! I failed with him twice. Apparently the novel is set up that you fail most of the time, which was fine with me because Nick ought to have been named Dick, judged from his behavior, but it's interesting that the mechanics of it did in fact work. You could tap the link to go to the optional sections of the story, or to return to the previous location and make a different selection.
I had no interest in pursuing this particular story, and cannot commend this as a worthy read. Obviously others - particularly the females at whom this is aimed - and maybe a few guys too, might have a much warmer view of this one than I did, but the format itself was interesting to me, and I can see this being useful in other stories. How well a book set up like this would translate across publishing platforms such as ePub, mobi, and PDF remains to be seen. My own feeling is that it's something better-suited to a middle-grade adventure story than to a romance, but who knows?
As far as this story itself is concerned, it felt trivial and silly to say nothing of how inappropriate it seemed in and age of #MeToo, college rape issues, and workplace harassment. I can't commend it.
