Review of "My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel"

[aikaterini]

Growing up, I never read any of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" (CYOA) books. I don't know if it's because they weren't readily available to me or because I just wasn't interested. But now I have found one that's just for adults and is explicitly romance-themed. So, I thought I'd give it a try.

The book is "My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive

Comments

[trinity_destler]

I saw this in a bookshop and had a really good laugh over the summary on the back, but figured I probably wouldn't enjoy actually reading it as much as the idea of it existing :P
I did read those really classic CYOA books as a kid and they were fun, but had necessarily shallow characters because of the limitations of the style.

Both 'cruel set of mouth' and words like 'chit' are so par for the course in romance novels, I'm constantly reminded why I don't read them lol. Infantalising language for the female lead is such a constant even in fanfic, even when it makes no sense, but I still grit my teeth.

[aikaterini]

/necessarily shallow characters because of the limitations of the style

[trinity_destler]

*The book is sprawling enough as it is with its multitude of storylines and endings, so if the authors tried to give the romances more depth, the page count would've been much longer.*

Yeah, that's basically what I figured. And as funny an idea as it is, it's probably one of those things that's funnier as an idea than as an actual full thing, and I fully expected that the romances wouldn't have much in the way of sincere romance. It's high concept and parody; it's not really possible to do that while also writing grounded character drama

[aikaterini]

/Sadly, this really is the pop cultural understanding of P&P

[trinity_destler]

Which ships/fandoms are those?Rumbelle (Belle/Rumpelstiltskin, Once Upon a Time), which is a Beauty and the Beast ship. And I mean, literally, Disney owns the show and they are the show's version of B&tB- Belle is introduced wearing the gold ballgown and they once danced to the theme tune. He's cursed, she almost breaks it with True Love's kiss (and then the writing-- already very shaky-- slid off a cliff in the second season and they completely fumbled both the curse thing and the TLK thing and there was never a satisfying conclusion as the show got worse every year it was on, but I digress

[aikaterini]

/It's like they think any kind of fraught, conflicted romance= P&P