Item - Revolution in Russia

A year after going to Mexico in the last book, you are now a spy in World War I, and you have to go to Russia to prevent the Soviets from taking over (which turns out to be impossible).

I didn't like this book as well as the last one. For one thing, although the first choice comes only four pages into the book, later on there are some quite long stretches of text without choices. Also, the first choice involves you choosing between two ways to get to Russia... and what happens if you make the "wrong" decision? You get your arm broken and that leads to an uninteresting ending. That's one of my CYOA pet peeves -- you get a bad ending simply by choosing the wrong geographic location to go to, a completely un-strategic decision. There's also little replay value since the plot is very linear -- although you can't get killed (like all the YIJC CYOA books), all but one of the endings are dissatisfying.

This one does have a humorous, drunken anarchist, but that's not enough to save this book from mediocrity. Read it if you're a fan of the series, but it pales next to book two.

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