House of Danger

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 lengths (e.g. Fighting Fantasy) and especially by other interactive media.

The plot: you're a detective and psychic investigator who gets a mysterious call that leads you to an unusual house: your specialty.

Observations: this entry posits you as an show more investigator for hire. Later books in the series with a similar premise might be considered its unofficial sequels. This story was revived in 2018 as a narrative adventure board game.

Personal memories: the premise here is more vague than some, which usually bothered me, but it has some fascinating mystery and historical elements along with supernatural overtones that kept me coming back. I can't really explain it but the unpredictability that struck me as unfocused in other entries seems to work in this one. show less

Off-the-wall -- and little resemblance of a plot. Some of the endings and paths, though, are just so darn wacky that it manages to be worth the read-through.

Contains both aliens and monkeys. Either awesome or terrible depending on your tastes.

I hid in the bushes — turns out the monkeys were holograms and the bad guys were counterfeiting money. Revisiting this childhood classic was a blast, I'll be picking this up again for another twist soon.

There are about 20 different endings in this CYOA but because of that each ‘story’ feels like it ends too abruptly. I went through a few different ones and the endings just weren’t satisfying.

I love CYOA books. I got this one in my stocking from my mom (this morning). I'm 28 and still have fun choosing which way I want to travel through the book. I usually end up getting stuck in the books and never finding my way out. This was no exception. I got stuck in the House of Danger. What fun, now I can pick it up anytime and choose other directions.