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Choose Your Own Adventure #159
Tattoo of Death
Tattoo of Death by R. A. Montgomery takes YOU on a high-stakes martial arts adventure in Los Angeles, California. 9-12 year old readers will stand up to a gang of smugglers, refusing to give in to their criminal demands, fleeing the city in a high-speed chase down Route 66, and testifying in court to put the crooks behind bars.
Choose Your Own Adventure Tattoo of Death is an interactive adventure book in which YOU decide what happens next.
You befriend two boys at your martial arts studio, and before you know it, they force you to join their gang, the notorious Red Flowers! Do you allow them to blackmail you? Or do you hide out in your parents' beach house to devise a plan? What do you do with the mysterious package they ask you to deliver?
For readers who enjoyed other titles from the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Struggle Down Under by Shannon Gilligan, Secret of the Ninja by Jay Leibold, and Cup of Death by Shannon Gilligan.
Choose Your Own Adventure Tattoo of Death is an interactive adventure book in which YOU decide what happens next.
You befriend two boys at your martial arts studio, and before you know it, they force you to join their gang, the notorious Red Flowers! Do you allow them to blackmail you? Or do you hide out in your parents' beach house to devise a plan? What do you do with the mysterious package they ask you to deliver?
For readers who enjoyed other titles from the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Struggle Down Under by Shannon Gilligan, Secret of the Ninja by Jay Leibold, and Cup of Death by Shannon Gilligan.
144 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1995
3 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
R.A. Montgomery
156 books121 followersRaymond A. Montgomery (born 1936 in Connecticut) was an author and progenitor of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure interactive children's book series, which ran from 1979 to 2003. Montgomery graduated from Williams College and went to graduate school at Yale University and New York University (NYU). He devoted his life to teaching and education.
In 2004, he co-founded the Chooseco publishing company alongside his wife, fellow author/publisher Shannon Gilligan, with the goal of reviving the CYOA series with new novels and reissued editions of the classics.
He continued to write and publish until his death in 2014.
In 2004, he co-founded the Chooseco publishing company alongside his wife, fellow author/publisher Shannon Gilligan, with the goal of reviving the CYOA series with new novels and reissued editions of the classics.
He continued to write and publish until his death in 2014.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 14, 2023
☆☆مسیر داستان را انتخاب کنید، یک داستان با ۱۵ پایان متفاوت!☆☆
وقتی توی کتابفروشی این عنوانهارو روی جلد کتاب دیدم واقعا ذوق کردم، یکی از بهترین و جالبترین کتابهایی که توی بچگیم خوندم "جزیره هزار داستان" از همین مجموعه بود و لذتی که سالها پیش از خوندنش بردم هنوزم یادمه! و البته وقتی قیمتش که ده هزار تومن بود رو دیدم هم بیشتر ذوق کردم و بعد ازینکه مطمئن شدم صد هزار نیست و خواب نمیبینم، چهار جلد متفاوت از مجموعهش رو خریدم.
داستان خیلی شل و آبکی بود و پایان ها بسیار پنیری و قابل پیشبینی، انقدر بد نوشته شده بود که تقریبا خوب بود! خیلی حال داد خوندنش چون واقعا خندهدار بود و از ساده و مسخره بودنش کیف کردم! هر پونزده مسیر رو خوندم و نشستم یه نمودار شاخهای از تصمیمهای متفاوت و نتیجهشون کشیدم! خیلی کار بیهودهایه و احتمالا فکر میکنید بیش از حد وقت آزاد دارم ولی باتوجه به بازه تمرکزم و حافظهم که به دوازده ثانیه تقلیل پیدا کرده، انجام اینکار واقعا مثل یه بازی مدیتیشن گونه بود و حتما بازم بقیه جلدهارو میخونم و همین کارو میکنم :))
خلاصه اینکه واقعا ایده خفنیه که خواننده خودش تصمیم بگیره توی داستان چه اتفاقی میفته و مخصوصا نحوه روایت که دوم شخصه خیلی به جذابیتش اضافه میکنه، حقیقتا از خوندن جمله "شما کشته شدید!" خیلی بیشتر ذوق میکنم تا "فلانی کشته شد!"
وقتی توی کتابفروشی این عنوانهارو روی جلد کتاب دیدم واقعا ذوق کردم، یکی از بهترین و جالبترین کتابهایی که توی بچگیم خوندم "جزیره هزار داستان" از همین مجموعه بود و لذتی که سالها پیش از خوندنش بردم هنوزم یادمه! و البته وقتی قیمتش که ده هزار تومن بود رو دیدم هم بیشتر ذوق کردم و بعد ازینکه مطمئن شدم صد هزار نیست و خواب نمیبینم، چهار جلد متفاوت از مجموعهش رو خریدم.
داستان خیلی شل و آبکی بود و پایان ها بسیار پنیری و قابل پیشبینی، انقدر بد نوشته شده بود که تقریبا خوب بود! خیلی حال داد خوندنش چون واقعا خندهدار بود و از ساده و مسخره بودنش کیف کردم! هر پونزده مسیر رو خوندم و نشستم یه نمودار شاخهای از تصمیمهای متفاوت و نتیجهشون کشیدم! خیلی کار بیهودهایه و احتمالا فکر میکنید بیش از حد وقت آزاد دارم ولی باتوجه به بازه تمرکزم و حافظهم که به دوازده ثانیه تقلیل پیدا کرده، انجام اینکار واقعا مثل یه بازی مدیتیشن گونه بود و حتما بازم بقیه جلدهارو میخونم و همین کارو میکنم :))
خلاصه اینکه واقعا ایده خفنیه که خواننده خودش تصمیم بگیره توی داستان چه اتفاقی میفته و مخصوصا نحوه روایت که دوم شخصه خیلی به جذابیتش اضافه میکنه، حقیقتا از خوندن جمله "شما کشته شدید!" خیلی بیشتر ذوق میکنم تا "فلانی کشته شد!"
March 23, 2013
Balls! Balls, balls, balls!
This being my third adventure of choosing, I decided to take a different tack. I thought, "Well, trying to figure out what the creator, this insane Montgomery person wants me to do is not working out for me. So far I've ended up with no pictures of a Yeti and stuck shrunken down to the size of a grain of rice. more importantly, I don't think I'm actually getting to the adventure part. For the most part, I hear setup, then immediately smash the story straight into the wall. It's like the guy who dies at the tail end of boot camp in army movies. All this setup, no payoff.
THIS time I figured I would shoot for the big idea, which appeared to be a karate fight in Japan. So whenever there was a choice, instead of being responsible or taking the light risk, it was balls to the wall.
Again, I didn't die. But I was about to be taken to Japan, where the boss of this whole operation, Big Guy, was probably going to murder me.
Just as a quick note, the main bad guy is Big Guy. Your friends are Ben and Sprazzle. And, my personal favorite because it's insane and also because it absolutely did not need to be in the book for any reason, the name of your father's attorney is Marvelous Marvin Carmichael.
I'm starting to lose hope that I will actually accomplish any of the goals set forth in these books. I can't take a photo of a yeti, be taken prisoner by ant people, or participate in some kind of karate gang. I'm running out of options here.
Also, the dedication is fucking excellent:
This book is dedicated to the concept of freedom, liberty, and justice to all. Thank you, founders of this democracy.
Yes indeed. You were the TRUE choosers of this great adventure we call America.
This being my third adventure of choosing, I decided to take a different tack. I thought, "Well, trying to figure out what the creator, this insane Montgomery person wants me to do is not working out for me. So far I've ended up with no pictures of a Yeti and stuck shrunken down to the size of a grain of rice. more importantly, I don't think I'm actually getting to the adventure part. For the most part, I hear setup, then immediately smash the story straight into the wall. It's like the guy who dies at the tail end of boot camp in army movies. All this setup, no payoff.
THIS time I figured I would shoot for the big idea, which appeared to be a karate fight in Japan. So whenever there was a choice, instead of being responsible or taking the light risk, it was balls to the wall.
Again, I didn't die. But I was about to be taken to Japan, where the boss of this whole operation, Big Guy, was probably going to murder me.
Just as a quick note, the main bad guy is Big Guy. Your friends are Ben and Sprazzle. And, my personal favorite because it's insane and also because it absolutely did not need to be in the book for any reason, the name of your father's attorney is Marvelous Marvin Carmichael.
I'm starting to lose hope that I will actually accomplish any of the goals set forth in these books. I can't take a photo of a yeti, be taken prisoner by ant people, or participate in some kind of karate gang. I'm running out of options here.
Also, the dedication is fucking excellent:
This book is dedicated to the concept of freedom, liberty, and justice to all. Thank you, founders of this democracy.
Yes indeed. You were the TRUE choosers of this great adventure we call America.
January 5, 2020
The lack of effort that went into writing this story (stories?) is appalling, to the point of using terrible excuses for what was nothing but pure lazy writing. Everything felt unnecessary rushed, there was no development, and there wasn't any payoff either. The endings were just a lame cop-out in most cases. When I was a child, I read a few titles in this collection and I still hold one of them dear to my heart. But this one... It was just bad.
October 4, 2024
Lots of fun!
January 8, 2022
This is the third Choose Your Own Adventure reprint series book in a row that I've read and given a one-star review to, following number 20 (Inca Gold) and number 21 (Struggle Down Under). The prior two deserved that rating due to unforgivable page referral errors that broke the stories entirely. Tattoo of Death deserves that rating because R.A. Montgomery was a horrendous writer. Early CYOA books tried to conceal that horrendousness by only letting him write a short paragraph per page and providing lots of story variety. Latter-day CYOA books allowed him to stretch his long-form writing muscles a bit, which resulted in page-long passages in chunks of five, six, or even more, with no choices anywhere to be found. Unfortunately, this only managed to draw attention to how preposterous Montgomery's ideas are, with everyone - including the point of view character that you're supposed to be controlling - behaving like an idiot, preposterous things happening, and a complete lack of even the slightest understanding of non-Western cultures. While bigfoot and aliens shockingly do not appear, the main villain is a cyborg despite the book being set in the modern day without any other advanced technology; even when Asian countries aren't magical, there apparently must be something outlandish about them when Montgomery is writing. The best ending in the book is one that you receive from the very first choice you can make: Going to the police immediately results in the entire criminal enterprise you're dealing with being arrested and you get to live in witness protection. All of the others end with less optimal outcomes, mostly involving your horrible death. That's a shame, because this is yet another one of Montgomery's "social message" books that's seemingly supposed to highlight the evils of human trafficking and it would've been nice to save some of the modern slaves that get mentioned a lot, but you never get a chance to directly interact with, help, save, or learn about any of them.
You know what should happen to R.A.
Montgomery's books?
Turn to page 58.
58
You decide to wait and watch. You peer into the
dim room as the reviewer suddenly grabs the book
roughly by the spine and-
CENSORED DUE TO EXCESSIVE, GRUE-
SOME VIOLENCE.
The End
You know what should happen to R.A.
Montgomery's books?
Turn to page 58.
58
You decide to wait and watch. You peer into the
dim room as the reviewer suddenly grabs the book
roughly by the spine and-
CENSORED DUE TO EXCESSIVE, GRUE-
SOME VIOLENCE.
The End
April 13, 2023
So bad it's good. Like Moonfall. But dumber.
Legit this is one of the dumbest books I've ever read - though I'll congratulate Mr Montgomery on not resorting to his usual irresistible urge to add in aliens. I could not stop laughing. It was like one of those terrible 80s action movies that's a knockoff of a knockoff, and you keep being like "wait what" and wondering how many drugs the writers were on. I was keeping a list of choice lines from this thing, and if I included everything that sounded like it was written by an AI from 1955, it would be half the book. But here are a couple of the very best. (Remember, these are actual sentences written by an actual human in an actual book that was actually published.)
"Too bad for you, Tulip. If the package doesn't get to where it belongs, then you are going to get where you deserve to belong! Bing, bang, bong!"
"Your feet respond to all the neural transmitters that are urgently telling them to flee."
"'Thumb, get ready for work,' you say." (I lost it at that one. I'd love to see this thing put to film.)
"'What's up, dude?' Fran says, trying to use slang. It doesn't fit too well with her, but you appreciate the attempt." (According to the internet, "What's up?" has been a common greeting since the 1800s, and "dude" as a general term for any guy dates to at least the 1960s. So, uh, wouldn't really call that "slang". Sorry, Grandpa Montgomery.)
"Quiet, you spazzmatoid! Ears have walls, you know." [sic]
After reading many parts of this to a friend so we could laugh together at the bafflingly terrible... well, everything, she pointed out that perhaps Mr Montgomery IS (well... was) an alien, and that's why he struggles to write like an actual human. It would certainly explain a lot...
So, yes, this book is just as lazy and silly and preachy as the other reviewers have pointed out, but I have to say I enjoyed the hell out of it, way more than something like "Track Star" which was just one long anti-drug sermon, or "The Lost Jewels of Nabooti" which is so unhinged it's unreadable nonsense. Every time you think it can't get more absurd and tone-deaf, it does! Check it out! Possibly while high!
Legit this is one of the dumbest books I've ever read - though I'll congratulate Mr Montgomery on not resorting to his usual irresistible urge to add in aliens. I could not stop laughing. It was like one of those terrible 80s action movies that's a knockoff of a knockoff, and you keep being like "wait what" and wondering how many drugs the writers were on. I was keeping a list of choice lines from this thing, and if I included everything that sounded like it was written by an AI from 1955, it would be half the book. But here are a couple of the very best. (Remember, these are actual sentences written by an actual human in an actual book that was actually published.)
"Too bad for you, Tulip. If the package doesn't get to where it belongs, then you are going to get where you deserve to belong! Bing, bang, bong!"
"Your feet respond to all the neural transmitters that are urgently telling them to flee."
"'Thumb, get ready for work,' you say." (I lost it at that one. I'd love to see this thing put to film.)
"'What's up, dude?' Fran says, trying to use slang. It doesn't fit too well with her, but you appreciate the attempt." (According to the internet, "What's up?" has been a common greeting since the 1800s, and "dude" as a general term for any guy dates to at least the 1960s. So, uh, wouldn't really call that "slang". Sorry, Grandpa Montgomery.)
"Quiet, you spazzmatoid! Ears have walls, you know." [sic]
After reading many parts of this to a friend so we could laugh together at the bafflingly terrible... well, everything, she pointed out that perhaps Mr Montgomery IS (well... was) an alien, and that's why he struggles to write like an actual human. It would certainly explain a lot...
So, yes, this book is just as lazy and silly and preachy as the other reviewers have pointed out, but I have to say I enjoyed the hell out of it, way more than something like "Track Star" which was just one long anti-drug sermon, or "The Lost Jewels of Nabooti" which is so unhinged it's unreadable nonsense. Every time you think it can't get more absurd and tone-deaf, it does! Check it out! Possibly while high!
December 4, 2018
Just not of fan of this style of books, but I can appreciate their usefulness and the story wasnt bad.
November 1, 2020
This one is...pretty silly.
September 13, 2010
I like this book becuase you get to chose what happens next.Its a fantasy i got a schema i go to karate.I dont understand the president giving money to the evil robot.I dont like that they give me mesages thats still a litle thing the rest is awesome.I recoment this book if you like karate,robots,JAPAN.Enjoy the book.
July 29, 2008
'Choose your own adventure' series, Tattoo of Death... in these books the reader gets to be the central character by choosing what path the tale follows through a variety of endings...
October 28, 2015
not much challenge in this book
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews