Shannon Gilligan

The Choose Your Own Adventure series offered an option every few pages to choose how the story would continue. According to your preference, you would follow its instructions by turning to the appropriate page of the book as indicated by your choice. This was a popular and revolutionary idea when the series was first launched in the early 1980s, driving it to incredible sales levels for many years until it was overshadowed by variants on the idea that took the concept to more elaborate show more lengths (e.g. Fighting Fantasy) and especially by other interactive media.

The plot: A tea bowl's gone missing, and it's your job to interview people and follow the clues to retrieve it.

Observations: I believe this is the first entry where you have any martial arts skills to boast of, albeit in a muted way. I mustn't have been the only one who appreciated it, seeing as how several later entries turned to focus on that.

Personal memories: As a young teen I didn't find a missing tea bowl to be very gripping stuff, plotwise. But the Japanese setting kept me coming back. show less

it was fun to read one of these again after decades, and to bring it to my son. we had a good time, but there weren't quite as many choices as i'd like and there were lots of pretty violent endings. still, it was fun and we all enjoyed it.

The Choose Your Own Adventure series offered an option every few pages to choose how the story would continue. According to your preference, you would follow its instructions by turning to the appropriate page of the book as indicated by your choice. This was a popular and revolutionary idea when the series was first launched in the early 1980s, driving it to incredible sales levels for many years until it was overshadowed by variants on the idea that took the concept to more elaborate show more lengths (e.g. Fighting Fantasy) and especially by other interactive media.

The plot: you are paid to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy entrepreneur, legally declared dead more than a decade ago but possibly still living somewhere in Thailand.

Observations: as an author's note explains at the start, she was inspired by the real life disappearance of silk manufacturer Jim Thompson in 1967. Those facts are transferred directly into the story, everything else is made up. Today the Jim Thompson house is one of Bangkok's premiere tourist attractions.

Personal memories: I liked the Thailand setting, and there's a pretty wide variety of interesting ways to die in this one. show less

Boring and long winded. There’s typos about what pages to turn to that make certain paths unable to be completed. Disappointing.