Mike MacDonald (1)

Keep yer rape culture out of my favorite childhood series, mkay?

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic copy of this book for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for rape.)

It's 7:30AM on a weekday and you're hungover...again. Do you a) hit the snooze button on your alarm and risk being late (even though you pissed yourself overnight and desperately need a shower), or b) call in and use up your last remaining sick day (keeping in mind that it's only March and you have another show more nine months of this shit to look forward to)? Nearly every path leads to humiliation and ruin, so no need to choose carefully.

One of my favorite childhood series gets an adult makeover in Choose Your Own Misery: The Office Adventure - a Dilbertesque spin on ye ole Choose Your Adventure books that were popular in the '80s. Dilbert, if it was rated R, and to the nth degree of absurdity.

I was both nervous and excited to try this title, and with good reason - the last such book I read (Max Brallier's Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?) was a giant letdown, with an obnoxious dudebro as the MC. Straight, white, middle-class, with a penchant for abusing animals and devaluing women. Completely unrelatable to anyone but a fedora-wearing, mouthing-breathing ex-frat boy. Which most of us aren't.

To its credit, Choose Your Own Misery tries hard to be gender- (and possibly race-) neutral. Every time something pops up that might pigeonhole the narrator as a dude, an alternate explanation is offered. That Axe body spray you use to mask the reek of vodka sweat rolling off you in waves? It's not yours; your roomie left it behind when he moved out. Khakis? Hey, ladies wear those too. And yet after progressing through a dozen or so possible stories, it becomes apparent that you only have a romantic interest in women. So...either you're a straight guy or a lesbian in a city incredibly accepting of LGB folks. Possible, but unlikely.

Even so, I found the story amusing enough - good in small doses, useful for killing a few minutes here or there - until I stumbled upon the rape plots. Plots, plural.

In the first one, you make up a story about the nerdy IT guy date-raping a coworker at an office party in order to keep him away from Debby, some woman you didn't even like - until you set her up with said guy so that he'd cover for your with your boss. Didn't I mention that you're a horrible person? Like, the worst.

The second rape plot has you visiting Debby's crystal healer, who grabs your junk without your consent during the session. Whether you decide that you're outraged or not, either choice has you wishing you'd purchased Fiona's services in bulk, since being sexually assaulted is the most human contact you've had in months.

And that was when I decided that I can't even with this book. Like, who looks at a kid's book and thinks "You know what this needs? More rape."

Look. I'm not arguing for a blanket ban on rape jokes. They can actually be funny - but only if the subject of the joke, the person or thing we're all laughing at, is the bad guy: the rapist. Rape culture. Rape apologists. Not the victim. Never the victim. It's shameful to score a cheap laugh at his or her expense.

And what do these two (allegedly amusing) plot points have to say about rape? People lie about rape for their own ends, and those who aren't getting laid on the regular should just be happy that someone wants to rape them. Rape culture 101.

The book you've eagerly devoted your Sunday afternoon to makes some rather appalling assumptions about rape. Do you a) purge your Kindle with a long overdue bleach bath; b) burn this shit to the ground; or c) write your own feminist Choose Your Own Revenge story? (Dear dog, someone please choose c!)

Look. The Onion is usually pretty good about this stuff. Is it really too much to expect better from one of its writers?

http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/01/27/choose-your-own-misery-the-office-adventure... show less

I loved the choose your own adventure books when I was a kid, and now I love them as an adult thanks to this book. It's really hilarious, and you end up in really bizarre situations that usually don't end well. So far I've went out to chop a christmas tree, and ended up questioning my own sexuality with a bruised kidney, I've spent a night at a motel and ended up knocking out a diabetic with incontinence issues, and I've been robbed by my taxi driver in jamaica while I was on the toilet. I show more can't recommend this book enough, I love it! show less

You want to feel like a kid again? Read "Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays" by Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon and feel young again. It is a choose your own adventure for adults! There are lots of points in the story that you have to make decisions and boy do they take you in totally different ways! I tried several ways and it was a hoot! It was fun and there are so many different options that I had to read it several times and still didn't get all the options possible. They are fun and show more clever stories about the holidays.Very cute and a great idea for parties or just for yourself. Thanks NetGalley for suggesting this book. show less

Got this on #netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Didn't care for this one. Started on too limiting a premise and the "I" is hetro male, and overly dependent on that POV. Two recent books that use the "choose your own" premise much better are the Neil Patrick Harris autobiography and Romeo and/or Juliet.