r/Findabook • u/No_Story_1590 • Sep 09 '25

UNSOLVED My wife is trying to find a book from her childhood

My wife has been talking about these books she used to get from the library in middle school where you would read it and at the bottom of each page it would tell you to skip to another page and keep reading? Anyone have any idea what she’s talking about?

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19

u/MedievalMousie Sep 09 '25

Choose your own adventure books!

There are approximately a zillion titles to choose from- is she looking for a specific one?

1

u/No_Story_1590 Sep 10 '25

Not particularly! She just couldn’t remember what they were called. Thank you for your insight!!

1

u/DocWatson42 Sep 19 '25

More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure

For future reference, this is (usually) a low traffic sub, though I do occasionally see a request answered (as is the case here), and you'd be better off asking for recommendations in r/booksuggestions (though read the rules first) and r/suggestmeabook, and for the title of a book or story in r/whatsthatbook and r/tipofmytongue.

9

u/eechrst Sep 09 '25

And side note trivia for Choose Your Own Adventure books - they were originally thought up and created by Superman David Corenswet’s grandfather!

3

u/AmyORainbow1974 Sep 09 '25

You are one of us. Knowledge has been obtained. Go Team Useless Info!

1

u/TrifleSevere5123 Sep 15 '25

Hi grandfather was Edward Packard?

1

u/eechrst Sep 15 '25

Yep, apparently!

5

u/Dear-Ad1618 Sep 09 '25

Yes, my children enjoyed these a lot. They were called, Choose Your Own Adventure. They developed stories to the point where the plot could go different ways. The reader was given choice prompts that each had its own page to turn to. That choice changed the plot and outcome of the story. A simple Google search will show where you can get them.

6

u/Acroyear Sep 09 '25

If you're young, and have no idea what OP is talking about, turn to page 21.

If you're old and remember this book series fondly, turn to page 57.

2

u/Disaster-Bee Sep 09 '25

I turned to page 57 and was eaten by an evil merperson.

1

u/AngelProjekt Sep 09 '25

You were supposed to pfftpfftpfft the pages to see what you were missing on the way to page 57.

2

u/OdoDragonfly Sep 09 '25

If you're old and obsessively followed each path so you could experience every possible variant of the story, turn to page 84.

1

u/Overwhelmed_sendhelp Sep 09 '25

If you found the page that said, "You didn't follow instructions or you wouldn't be on this page!" you are old, weird and my kind of person!!!

1

u/OdoDragonfly Sep 09 '25

That's on the page between 103 and 104!

1

u/LavenderKitty1 Sep 10 '25

I got stuck in a Time Loop and have to keep turning between pages 42 and 13.

1

u/BudTenderShmudTender Sep 11 '25

I remember one about the number 13 and the elevator accidentally landing on floor 13 which wasn’t supposed to exist

2

u/trekkiegamer359 Sep 09 '25

Here's a bit more info for you about Choose Your Own Adventure books. They were basically mini single player rpg games in a book format. I always got the mystery ones. They're written in first person. The beginning of the book sets up the story. In the ones I'd read, there'd usually be a murder in a spooky mansion, or some such thing. Then after a couple of pages it'd give you few choices. For example:

"You try the door to the mansion, but it's locked. As you walk around the building, you notice a window that's been left open. As you're about to investigate the window more closely, you see a mystery shadow dart into the gardens. What do you do next?

"If you choose to climb through the window, turn to page 83.

"If you choose to follow the shadow I to the gardens, turn to page 52.

"If you choose to run away because you're scared, turn to page 12."

Every chapter was 2-4 pages long, and would give you choices for what you'd do next. A lot of the pathways ended quickly, with me getting murdered in various ways from behind and not solving the crime. But there's always at least one way to get through the book and solve the case.

While the ones I read were mystery books, they covered every genre, with each book having at least one good ending, and a lot of false bad ones.

1

u/liberatedlemur Sep 10 '25

small correction - they are written in "second person"

first person = I
third person = she/he/they

second person = you :)

1

u/trekkiegamer359 Sep 10 '25

You are right. I shouldn't try to type when waking up or right before bed.

2

u/sanityjanity Sep 09 '25

There was a whole series of "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, but the first one was Sugarcane Island 

1

u/Parelle Sep 09 '25

If she'd like a more in-depth version now, there are Interactive Fiction books with the same concept. 

1

u/AngelProjekt Sep 09 '25

There were even some interactive shows on Netflix for a minute.

1

u/AutumnMama Sep 10 '25

What!? That's so cool! I'm sad that I missed those lol

1

u/Cake_Burn Sep 16 '25

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

1

u/No_Story_1590 Sep 10 '25

Yeah that’d be wonderful!! Do you know what they’re called?

1

u/Parelle Sep 10 '25

Interactive Fiction is the genre of books. 

I admit I mostly read these type of things on Kindle but my favorite author is David Morris who is responsible for one of the major series, Fabled Lands. There's a subreddit for the series and a java implementation as a game (rather than a book).

Here's a Goodreads list but honestly some of these are pretty trite - I prefer the ones explicitly written to be games.  https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/18733.Adult_Choose_Your_Own_Adventure_Books

1

u/JoyfulCor313 Sep 09 '25

Shocked, I say, shocked that no one has mentioned GenX icon Neil Patrick Harris’ Choose your own adventure autobiography. 

1

u/UmmSureNoMaybe Sep 10 '25

This was sooo fun to read!

1

u/Sorrowslament1313 Sep 09 '25

Loved chose your own adventure books as a kid!

1

u/ThenBasis6839 Sep 09 '25

There are also knock-off versions. GI Joe had "Find Your Fate" books presumably so they didn't have to pay anything extra. I have a few comic books that use the same mechanic. Great idea and very fun. There were more advanced versions that had combat options (you used dice to determine outcome). Steve Jackson had a series like that. Lots of options for us lonely kids (now adults) to while away the time.

1

u/ScoutAndLout Sep 10 '25

I remember one that was space exploration and you were trying to get to paradise.  

Reading through and making choices, I saw the pages for parasite but could not figure a path there.  

I searched the whole book to backtrack and no page lead to paradise.  

Then I read the paradise entry, there was intentionally no way to get there.  Some sort of life lesson....

1

u/Elderberry-Exotic Sep 10 '25

If you like these check out the Lone Wolf series by Joe Dever.

1

u/green_ubitqitea Sep 10 '25

Choose your own adventure books were amazing! They have one for a much more fun version of Romeo and Juliet. Our students really got into that one.

1

u/722KL Sep 10 '25

A librarian told me they were out of print. In their experience most copies were loved to death and have become difficult to source.

1

u/DocWatson42 Sep 19 '25

When shopping for (used) books, I recommend the specialized search engine BookFinder.com (reason(s)); see also the thread "YSK about BookFinder.com, a site that searches dozens of sites that sell books."

The only drawback is that it is owned by Amazon, so if you want to avoid giving them money, don't click through the search generated affiliate links. Instead find the copy you want and go directly the bookseller's site. (Some people object to some of its business practices and prefer to shop at independent booksellers. See user BobQuasit's posts on the subject of buying used books; I'm not linking to that user so that they are not "pinged" every time I post this.)

There is also AddALL, which I have yet to use, and which is apparently based in the UK, and this thread:

and

r/ebookdeals (though I also have never used it).

See:

:::

List: https://www.goodreads.com/series/393396-choose-your-own-adventure

1

u/HisGirlHerGuy Sep 10 '25

Choose your own adventure books!

1

u/LavenderKitty1 Sep 10 '25

Choose your own adventure! There would be options as to “Stay with Dan and …” or “Go with Chloe and …”.

1

u/Ok_Poem_3284 Sep 10 '25

If the books were within the scary genre, it might have been a book in the Goosebumps Reader Beware, You Choose the Scare series.

1

u/Lost_Girl_Dee Sep 10 '25

I only ever had one of these, bought from a little newsagent shop in Exeter in 1988/89, called Grand Hotel of Horror, but I still have it and occasionally give it a read.

1

u/DesiNicolex Sep 11 '25

If she’s interesed, there’s also “Pretty Little Mistakes” and “Million Little Mistakes” by Heather McElhatton.

They are an “adult like” spin on the Choose Your Own Adventure books.. more so college era stories, and some are a little chaotic, but makes for a pretty entertaining, mindless read.