The Saturday Night Bash
Author: Linda Joy Singleton
Illustrator: John Terence Turner (cover photo)
First Published: 1994
ISBN: 1-56565-143-X
Length: 126 pages
Number of Endings: 16
Plot Summary: You've been invited to your rich friend Emilee's party,
and you need to find a date to go with.
My Thoughts: As I said above, these books are sort of the romantic
equivalent of the Nightmares! series in terms of
format. As with those adventures, the inclusion of a character list is a
pointless waste of space and does absolutely nothing to shade the (at best)
two-dimensional characters that populate the book. We're deep in the land of
teen stereotypes here, with the standard romance novel cliches mixed in for
good measure. That being said, the book could have been worse. There was
really not much chance of me enjoying it considering that I fall well outside
of its target demographic, but I at least managed not to find it actively
offensive; shallow, certainly, but not as odious as romantic fiction often
is. The book offers only one innovation in the area of mechanics; at two
points, it has a "But Wait!" box which allows you to interrupt the
story mid-stream and act as if you had made a different choice at an earlier
decision point. If you ask me, this is more than a little bit pointless, but
it's certainly never something I've seen before -- some books (like the Zork series) offer a post-ending undo feature, but this
is the first time that I recall seeing a chance to go back and try something
new before the bitter end.
Spring Break!
Author: Linda Joy Singleton
Illustrator: Peter Correz (cover photo)
First Published: 1994
ISBN: 1-56565-144-8
Length: 126 pages
Number of Endings: 17
Plot Summary: It's spring break, so you and some friends set off for
the beach in search of shallow wish-fulfillment!
My Thoughts: Much to my surprise, this book is actually a sequel to
the first one; it clearly takes place at a later point in time since it
mentions that two characters have broken up with their boyfriends from the
previous volume. For some reason, I had expected the two titles in the
series to be completely separate and distinct. Although making this book
such a clear sequel strikes me as potentially unwise, it actually does a
fairly decent job of maintaining continuity with the many possibilities of
its predecessor. There are quite a few possible glitches, but I suspect the
author figured that boy-crazy middle-schoolers wouldn't be terribly concerned
about story integrity. She was probably right. In any case, apart from the
change of scenery, this is pretty similar to the last story, full of flat
characters and stereotypical girliness. Even when the book tries to be a
little outrageous (as, for example, in its portrayal of hippies), it seems
pretty ordinary. I do have to give a little credit for the creation of
Psycho the pig, though. Despite this amusement, I think I cringed at this
book a bit more than I did at the last; it probably has something to do with
the overused phrase "beach hunks." Like the other book, "But
Wait!" boxes are used to allow the reader to second-guess herself; this
time around, three such opportunities are offered, and they seem just as
senseless as before. Anyway, I'm not terribly disappointed that only two
books exist in this series; I don't think the world needs any more books like
these. They're really an exercise in wasted potential; human relationships
are fascinating things, and using the gamebook format to examine the many
ways that they can potentially unfold is an interesting idea. Of course, you
can't really expect to be emotionally moved by something with pink and purple
hearts on the cover. Best to stick with Life's
Lottery for the time being.