Romeo and/or Juliet
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: March 9, 2017 2:05 PM | Last Updated: April 10, 2017
Ryan North
In this choose-your-own-path version of Romeo and Juliet, you choose where the story goes every time you read! What if Romeo never met Juliet? What if Juliet got really buff instead of moping around the castle all day? What if they teamed up to take over Verona with robot suits? Whatever your adventure, you're guaranteed to find lots of romance, lots of epic fight scenes, and plenty of questionable decision-making by very emotional teens. All of the endings — there are over a hundred — feature beautiful illustrations by some of the greatest artists working today. Packed with exciting choices, fun puzzles, secret surprises, terrible puns, and more than a billion possible storylines, Romeo and/or Juliet offers a new experience every time you read it. You can choose to play as Romeo or Juliet (obviously) but you can also play as both of them, or as Juliet's nurse, or, if you're good, you can even unlock a fourth playable character! Choose well, and you may even get to write the world's most awkward choose-your-own sex scene. (From Penguin)
From the book
As we know, William Shakespeare (1564 AD—whenever he dies) was well known for borrowing from existing literature whe writing his plays. Our previous publication, To Be or Not to Be: This Is the Adventure, firmly established the award-wining play Hamlet (I know, turns out there are awards for plays) was lifted wholesale from that recently rediscovered text. We suggested, then, that To Be or Not to Be was both the earliest example of the "book as game" genre, as well as the first instance ever in the then-newish English language that was kicking around of an adventure being chosen by YOU, the reader.
From Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North ©2016. Published by Penguin.