YOUR LIFE, BUT BETTER

“Choose your own adventure” meets fashion-magazine personality quiz in this lively, light story aimed at young teens. Employing second-person narration and a conversational tone laden with current pop-culture references, the book informs readers they are a 12-year-old girl who has been dragged to the mall by her friends to sleuth out tickets to a classmate’s exclusive Charlie and the Chocolate Factory–themed party. Though hoping to bump into her crush, she instead runs into a tyrannical model scout in need of an emergency replacement for a photo shoot taking place that day. To decide whether or not she’d like to participate, readers are prompted to take a short multiple-choice test to determine which direction the story will take, the first of many such divergent points. Gently skewed toward positive outcomes for the confident, there are still many satisfying story arcs for the meek. Jealousy, on the other hand, is discouraged outright. Girls who are eagerly anticipating their teen years will enjoy this breezy, reader-driven tale, however it turns out for them. (Novelty/fiction. 10-13)