Behind the Wheel

Choose Your Own Adventure #121

by Anson Montgomery

The reader's decisions control the course of an adventure in which a gambling syndicate tries to influence the outcome of a Swiss auto race

Genres: Choose Your Own Adventure, Childrens, Fiction, Adventure

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

After graduating from Williams College with a degree specialization in ancient history, Anson Montgomery spent ten years founding and working in technology-related companies, as well as working as a freelance journalist for financial and local publications. He is the author of four books in the original Choose Your Own Adventure series, Everest Adventure, Snowboard Racer, Moon Quest (reissued in 2008 by Chooseco), and CyberHacker as well as two volumes of Choose Your Own Adventure - The Golden Path, part of a three volume series. Anson lives in Warren, VT with his wife, Rebecca, and his two daughters, Avery and Lila.

Reviews

[beans · Rating 1 out of 5]

my favourite part was when they quit cars to join the UN

[Ana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es un libro entretenido. Me hubiese gustado que hubiera un índice con las tomas de decisiones, para poder volver de manera más fácil. Me llama la atención esta idea de que una historia tenga múltiples finales. Yo creo que eran cerca de diez. Y que algunos finales estaban en la página 20. Me hubiese gustado también que el libro tratara más de la carrera en sí más que del complot, además que el complot estaba sustentado tan débilmente como para ser lo más importante del libro, mejor hubiese sido que tratara de la carrera en sí. Creo que el libro mejoraría mucho si fuera más largo, para conocer más a los personajes (que eran demasiados para un libro tan corto). Me dio mucha risa el final en que venden el auto de carreras y se van a la ONU. 😭 Sin comentarios.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

honestly lackluster endings so like.... what is the point???

my version had cool pictures though so that is fun

[Jason Hallahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give it a 8 out of 10. I really like these books because they go by fast and they are fun to read. I also never knew that there were 100+. IN these books you are the main character and you can pick what you decide to do in some parts. In one part you could choose what race you wanted to go in and what car. These books are great but the ends are cheesy because you could guess that your going to win the race. My favorite part was towards the end where you are racing and your friend breaks down and he needs a spare tire and you have one that fits on his car. You can either stop and give it to him or keep going. I picked the one where i helped him and we ended up finishing in 1st and 2nd and I got sponsers. I really want to read more of these types of books and i would recommend these books for everyone.

[Brent Ecenbarger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Four for four, we all hated this book. It's advertised as you're a race car driver. That's a little bit of the plot, but you also send your mind out to the far reaches of the world so you can eavesdrop on people that talk about killing you. It seems to me that if you have far reaching mental abilities, and can travel anywhere in the world with the power of thought, that would lead to more interesting story than wanting to be a race car driver.

What we get here instead is a REALLY long intro before getting any choices. Part of it is explaining the difference between a race and a rally. The other part is the aforementioned mind travel to see who the bad guys are. After that, we got two choices into this book before we got killed. Here were our two choices. Do you want to race in the Grand Prix or the Rally? Seems straight forward enough, we picked the Grand Prix. Next up, you meet the guy who was just saying he wants to kill you in your mental vision. Your choice: do you immediately allow him to join your race car team and start repairing your car, or should you think about it a bit before letting him join? Our boys picked to think about it before letting him join.

The next thing that happened was he pulls a gun on you and your body gets discovered later on. Everything about this book sucked. The long opening, the mental journey, and the lethal reward for making what seems like a pretty good decision. It will be awhile before our boys pick a choose your own adventure again after this crap.

[Aimee Nicole]

Not a lot of choices. Mostly directions on which page to turn to.

[Sterling Wesson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of boring endings and very flat characters.

[Peter Derk · Rating 1 out of 5]

First off, real confused. The book I read was about driving cars and spy stuff. It's possible that at some point it would be revealed that I'm an alien, as suggested here in the description, but before the ending I got it didn't seem to be an explicit part of the story.

I feel like I made it pretty far in this one. But ultimately, some rally driver got killed and I pretty much sucked it up in the rally race. So no biggie as long as living with a death on your conscious isn't a big thing. I guess that's an adventure? You semi-caused a man's death, and you're not going to prison, but you DO have to live with the guilt. I'm not sure that was the intended adventure, though. The title was kind of ominous, sort of sounded like a driver's ed video where you see a man's femur on the road in a pool of blood. But really, I didn't think the adventure would be so much a long, lifetime grind of emotion as it would be a, I don't know, car race.

Most interesting, in this volume the author felt the need to show you what was happening in a secret conference between the Bad Guys. So, in order to maintain that second-person fourth wall, the solution was:

"What would you say if I told you that these people were planning your death?" a voice inside your head asks. "That's right, your death. Right here in this little out-of-the-way cafe, your fate is about to be decided. Come, let's listen in."
At first you are jarred by this voice, its tone strange and yet familiar. Then you realize that it is your thought guide, and you give into it, allowing yourself to go along for the ride." [cut to inside of cafe]

Oh, riiiiight. That's just my lil ol' thought guide. Nothing to get excited about. Just that thing that happens where I watch little movies in my head regarding people sitting in a cafe and plotting my death. Seems reasonable. People plot other peoples' deaths all the time, and we all know it. It's not like only a crazy person would think someting like that was happening.

What really blows my mind is the pain taken here to maintain the perspective of the reader as being the same as that of the person in the book. YOU are, after all, choosing this adventure.

Now, me personally, if I were choosing an adventure, a rally race might be fun, but if i had a secret Spirit Animal Brain or whatever the hell, I would think that I could find more useful and intriguing ways to spend my time than driving a car quickly. Hell, a daytime show with a 1-900 number would probably be better uses of my precious gifts.

[Whitney · Rating 2 out of 5]

You are now a grown-up; you decide to grab a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure from a discount rack.

Hey, your uncle Raoul is letting you drive in a car race! Do you want the Porsche or the Ferrari?

It doesn't matter what car you drive.

Oh, no! You see someone suspicious with a suitcase, and he says he can help you win the race IF you follow him to a restaurant where a suspicious lady is waiting. Do you follow the man, or do you tell Uncle Raoul to bring the damn car around so you can start the race?

And so on.

You realize that these books have hidden morals, where if you're a dick to the nice characters, or if you stupidly get involved with suspicious characters who are NOT Uncle Raoul, you will be kidnapped and the police will never find your body. The End.

[Quiver26 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had two successful endings with the rally car race. A very fun read.