Item - You Are Microscopic

I don't remember this book that well, but there are number of things I do remember about it that I found interesting.

Although you are made very small (and put into a floating vessel of sorts) due to a scientist's experiment, your size can get even smaller than it might seem at first. In fact, one ending involves you becoming so small that you are about the size of a blood cell, and you decide to live in the new environment since you don't have a choice.

One interesting twist is when you enter the scientist's body in your vessel.

I'd have to reread this book again to get more details, but there's some real creativity in there.

More reviews by CGally

Like most CYOA books, this one is a mixture of good and bad qualities. The good stuff first.

It's mostly fun. There are a variety of ways the story can play out, ranging from cellular exploration to fighting a fly. There are a pair of endings that tie together from opposite sides of a loop (you'd have to read it to understand how that works). It's mostly easy to ignore logical problems with the premise, which is the sign of an engaging story.

The bad stuff: Packard gets way too bogged down in describing your size. Having read this book aloud, I found myself getting really bored of repeating "one one-thousandth" and then describing the size in terms of "a grain of sand" or "the size of a cell."

The book also has a very long introduction. I didn't count, but this felt like the longest one I've encountered.

Last, and probably the least important, is a storytelling issue. The scientist that shrinks you and your friends down seems remarkably incompetent. His tech fails constantly. He doesn't seem to have any issue with putting three kids into serious danger without parents knowing anything. There's an ending where you get launched into space as an emergency solution, but concerns about your parents never get mentioned.

More reviews by Jordashebasics

Another thing that is really interesting about this book is the fact that you can also become huge (macroscopic? hee hee...)

A little knowledge of the scientific world can help you make better choices in this book. For example, I knew better than to jump onto a "jelly blob" in the pond when I was teeny tiny (it turns out to be an amoeba that chomps you up!)

This book can get pretty far out there with quark theories and the like, and of course it's a totally unbelievable premise, but I kept telling myself, "It's just a book, just pretend that it's possible to breathe when you are smaller than air molecules..."

More reviews by yunakitty