Choose Your Own Adventure is a pretty unique genre of literature that lets us create our own story and explore our own adventures. You must remember reading these books in your childhood making some really tough choices and trying to survive your story. But the genre is not only for young readers but also for adults.
Choose Your Own Adventure has progressed over time and the genre has really provided us with some of the greatest books. The books not only serve as entertainment purposes but also enhances your decision making and reasoning skills.
Created using different literary elements, the genre is really fun to read. If you are into adventure and like to have some fun while reading then this genre is definitely for you. In case you haven’t read any Choose Your Own Adventure book yet and is thinking about starting one, then choosing one from the numerous could be a daunting task.
To your convenience, we have here curated the list of all the best Adventure books that will definitely give you a great reading experience. Have a look below:
1. To Be or Not To Be: A Chooseable-Path Adventure
Author’s Name: Ryan North
Publishing Year: 2013
To Be or Not To Be by Ryan North is a pretty unique approach by the author towards Choose Your Own Adventure Genre. The book is basically the retelling of Shakespeare’s famous Hamlet where you get to choose what happens in the story.
In the story, you are the Prince of Denmark and your mother has married your uncle after your father has just died. Now it is up to you how you are going to handle that situation. The rest of the story will have you making some tough choices but overall you will have a great fun experience. The book is filled with hilarious illustrations that will give you control of the famous Hamlet.
2. Lost In Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure
Author’s Name: Emma Campbell Webster
Publishing Year: 2007
After reading the book of the famous author, Jane Austen we all must have wondered at one point in our lives to live those moments described so beautifully in the book. Well, with Lost in Austen, you actually get that chance. Remember Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, what if you are Elizabeth Bennett in your own story and get to make the choice as per your wish?
Lost in Austen is based on the famous book Pride and Prejudice in the Choose Your Own Adventure Format. The story starts with you looking for the love of your life to marry. But now it is up to you if you want to explore the possibilities of having a love story with other characters of the book or want to make your way straight to Mr. Darcy.
But be prepared for all the hurdles that you are going to face. The story somehow also clashes with Jane Austen’s other famous works such as Emma, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and others.
3. Infected: Will You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?
Author’s Name: James Schannep
Publishing Year: 2013
Infected: Will You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse features three different storylines and also give you fifty possible endings. But it all comes down to just one question, Will you be able to survive? The book directly puts you in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse and now you will have to make some really tough choices and survive till the end of the book.
If you are a fan of creepy adventure like Zombie Apocalypse itself then the book will work wonders for you. Infected is kind of scary but also provide you with the thrill of surviving the apocalypse. The book however also has some of the really unexpected endings.
4. A Girl Walks Into A Bar: Your Fantasy, Your Rules
Author’s Name: Helen S. Paige
Publishing Year: 2013
A Girl Walks Into a Bar by Helen S. Paige is an erotic Choose Your Own Adventure novel. The book will have you make your own choices and lead your own story on how the night will end. You are all dressed up and you are going to the hottest club in town but wait, your best friend just canceled last minute. Now it is you who have to decide what you are going to do best.
A Girl Walks Into A Bar and now she gets to decide what this night will lead to. Are you interested in the rock star and want to do body shots with him? Do you want to shoot your shot with the hot bartender? Or you are looking towards turning the story the other way and wants to follow the mysterious woman to another location? With tons of ending possibilities, the choice is yours.
5. Choose Your Own Disaster
Author’s Name: Dana Schwartz
Publishing Year: 2018
Choose Your Own Disaster is both hilarious and heartbreaking, it is more of a memoir written in the format of Choose Your Own Adventure. The book is an honest memoir about the young woman who has to make some of the tough choices. Choose Your Own Disaster Combines humor with unflinching honesty.
The woman in the process of making some tough choices is trying to find herself. Though there are many many choices that her twenties has to offer, the woman must choose what is good for her.
6. My Lady’s Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel
Author’s Name: Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
Publishing Year: 2018
Have you ever read a classic romance novel and sometimes got really frustrated with the kind of choices that the heroine in the story made and wish you were there to make it different, well, you have that option now. With My Lady’s Choosing you will have all the control over the fate of your character and you will decide how the story will end.
The book will provide you with multiple options for how you want to start your love story and who you want to start it with. Are you falling for Captain Angus McTaggart? Or is your interest is leaning towards the time-traveling daring lady Evangeline? Or do you want to start the love affair with the scandalous Lord Garraway Craven? The choice is yours.
7. If
Author’s Name: Nicholas Bourbaki
Publishing Year: 2014
If by Nicholas Bourbaki is a very unique interactive novel that provides you with a different storyline. You are a nameless dreamer in the story and the story starts in North California. You will shape your own personality with the kind of choices you make. At the end of each chapter, you will be presented with a choice and how you make that choice is going to change the plot and the storyline.
Apart from this, the choices you make are also going to change the characterization of your character. The book provides you with about twenty-two possible endings.
8. Meanwhile
Author’s Name: Jason Shiga
Publishing Year: 2010
The book that starts with the simplest choices will have you making some of the life-altering decisions. At first, the book will ask you to choose between the simplest choices like chocolate or vanilla but slowly it transforms into making you choose between the decision of leading your life. Like mind reading or time traveling, what will you choose?
The graphic novel that features Jimmy will have you solve various mysterious and puzzels in order to make Jimmy reach his destination. All for an ice-cream he is trying not to destroy the whole universe.
9. Choose Your Own Misery: The Office
Author’s Name: Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon
Publishing Year: 2016
Well, who is sick of the Monday morning blues, going to the office regularly and doing the same old job? For all those people out there who feel stuck in a job, the authors of The Onion presents you with The Office Adventure which is the first book of the series Choose Your Own Misery. The book will let you explore your own adventure at the office and you will your own boss in this adventure.
You will get to make some of the bold choices in the story that you are afraid to make in your daily life. Want to skip the meeting? Or Create a whole mess in the office with your choices? The choice is up to you.
10. Undead Rising: Decide Your Destiny
Author’s Name: M.E. Kinkade
Publishing Year: 2015
Another Choose Your Own Adventure Book on Zombie Apocalypse will have you making some of the toughest choices in the book. The city of New York is struck with a Zombie Apocalypse and it is you who have you save yourself, your family, friends, neighbors and even strangers. The book features about 45 scenarios.
But what if you don’t survive? Well, then you will enter a completely different world as a Zombie and will get to choose your own destiny. Will you feed on celebrities? Or choose to get tested for the genetic experiment? The book will have you make your own destiny with each choice that you make.
11. Behind Closed Doors
Author’s Name: Alina Reyes
Publishing Year: 1997
Behind Closed Doors by Alina Reyes is a two-part book where you get to choose which gender role to play. One option will let you lead the story as a woman and the other one as a man. In the process, you will have to make some of the conflicting choices that will lead you to erotic fantasy. The book will take you on an unknown adventure where you will have to choose between the doors.
The surreal environment will get more intense as you move forward in the story but the erotic adventure will have your toes curling.
12. Which Cult Should I Join?: A Choose-Your-Own Guidebook for the Spiritually Bereft
Author’s Name: Jo Stewart
Publishing Year: 2017
The book will introduce you to one of the craziest cults in modern history. With the help of different flowcharts, you will get introduced to worlds of various cults. If you are a fan of cult-related true crime then this book will work wonders for you. Jo Stewart’s Which Cult Should I Join, is a great work of non-fiction in which you will have to be a part of a series of difficult decisions that will eventually lead yo to your cult.
The book covers approximately 40 cults and the decisions that you take along the way in the book will lead you to the one that suits you.
13. Beauty Queen Blowout
Author’s Name: Lilla and Nora Zuckerman
Publishing Year: 2003
Beauty Queen Blowout by Lilla and Nora Zuckerman will make you experience the life of a Beauty Pageant contestant. The other contestants are ready to do whatever it takes to win the competition, it is you who have to decide at what lengths you are ready to go. The host of the show is really disgusting and will become a hurdle of the sort in your way.
You will have to deal with all this around you and still manage to win the competition, well, only if you make the right choices.
14. Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography
Author Name: Neil Patric Harris
Publishing Year: 2014
If you are sick of honest memoirs and want to try something else concerning the autobiographies, you have come to the right place. The book, Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography will make you a part of these autobiographies and will let you make your own way. The book will start with you being in New Mexico. Now it is on you how you want to lead your life.
With multiple scenarios and various possible ending, the book will let you explore different possibilities of leading your life and how it ends.
15. You Are a Cat!
Author’s Name: Sherwin Tija
Publishing Year: 2011
Cat owners must have wondered at least once in your life that how it would be like to live life like a cat. Well, Sherwin Tija has made it possible for you with his book, You are a cat! In his book, you are a cat and you will get to live the life of a cat and take your decisions accordingly. The book focuses on a dysfunctional family and will show the life, the way it is through the eyes of a cat.
With every decision that you make you will affect the people around you and also your own personality. The experience of being a four-legged creature and be able to change the life of others with your decisions is what makes this book an interesting one.
16. Pretty Little Mistakes: A Do-Over Novel
Author’s Name: Heather McElhatton
Publishing Year: 2007
Do you wish to go back to your high school graduation year and make a few changes to make the endings change a bit? Well with Pretty Little Mistakes you will have numerous choices and have about 150 possibilities of an ending. The book lets you do a few do-overs and redo some of the decisions that you regret. The changes that you make now are going to change the rest of your life.
With the life-altering choices that you make in this book, you will either end up as a millionaire in a huge mansion or you will end up as a homeless driver. The choice is up to you. You can turn your whole life around with just a few changes and isn’t that amazing?
17. Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance
Author’s Name: Riana Konc
Publishing Year: 2019
Wouldn’t you want to create your own Christmas romance story with a dreamy prince living in a luxurious mansion? Well, with Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance, you can. The sweet romance tale will put you in the director’s chair where you get to decide how your story will turn and will give you the charge of your own romance.
Christmas romance movies are definitely to die for, and we often find ourselves wishing to live the life of the protagonists in that movies just for once. And this book is everything that you wish for in your romance story. The book starts with a major problem in your life, which you have to decide yourself.
Now after that is sorted you will have to go through a series of choices to finally meet your prince charming. With each choice you make your story is going to take a turn and it is you who have to decide whether you end up with the love of your life or your story will take a drastic turn.
Conclusion
How many times it has happened where you are reading a book or watching a movie and wished to make some different choices than the protagonists or just want to live their life for once to explore the different possibilities of ending the story? The genre ‘Choose your own adventure’, you will get to take the lead and make some life-altering choices.
With the choices that you make in these stories, you will experience different endings and will get to explore the effect of your decisions on your life as well as of others. The interesting genre is definitely an exciting one that puts you in the director’s chair.
The above-mentioned books were some of the best books written in the genre. With different storylines, plots, and themes, each book will take you on a different adventure. Do let us know in the comment section how you liked this article and you can also send suggestions and questions by commenting below.
