Bugged Out!

Choose Your Own Nightmare #8

by Laban Carrick Hill, Bill Schmidt (Illustrator )

When your uncle sends you an ancient mask from the Amazon rain forest, you can't wait to try it on, but it makes you turn into a fly.

Genres: Gamebooks

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Hill is the author of more than 35 books, including the 2004 National Book Award Finalist Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance, a book he researched for more than a decade. He was drawn to this era because the Harlem Renaissance seemed to embody Ralph Ellison’s sense that America could not be America without African Americans.

Hill has also taught writing at the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College, Columbia University, Baruch College, St. Michael’s College in Vermont, University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, and the University of Cape Coast in Ghana.

In the fall of 2008, when he was a visiting professor of creative writing at the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana, he co-founder and still co-directs of the Writers Project of Ghana, which was formed to promote literacy and literary culture and to publish literary books in Ghana. The Writers Project of Ghana has been supported by the U. S. State Department.

In 2010, Hill went to the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka to teach writing on a Fulbright Fellowship. As well, the U.S. State Department has brought him to Egypt, the Philippines and Indonesia to lecture on American culture, African American history, hip hop, and writing.

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The original Choose Your Own Nightmare series (1995-97) had many books that struggled with lack of internal continuity and substandard pacing, but could Bugged Out! buck the trend, considering its classic premise? Your everyday life gets a bounce of excitement when a gift arrives in the mail from your uncle Bill, an anthropologist on expedition in the rain forests of Brazil. The gift is a hyperrealistic fly mask used in ceremonies by an Amazon tribe Uncle Bill has interacted with. You invite your friend Emily—an insect enthusiast—to see the mask tomorrow morning, but you awaken to the horrifying reality that wearing the mask has transformed you into a tiny housefly. You can't speak except for buzzing sounds, but maybe you'll be able to improvise a way to communicate with Emily so she can help you return to your human self.

If you think an insect expert is your best bet, Emily transports you to school to see Mr. Scully, a science teacher who shares her interest in entomology. You've underestimated how hard it will be to survive school: at your size, almost every physical structure is a death trap. When Emily cuts her day short and goes to Mr. Scully outside of normal class hours, he scolds her for skipping other classes; can you show him you're human before he dismisses Emily? Capture Mr. Scully's attention with proof that you're a human trapped as a fly, and he offers a radical experiment to try...but it's dangerous, and there's no guarantee of complete success even if his theory pans out. If you fail to convince him you're a person, you and Emily need to find another way to change you back. Might Uncle Bill have a remedy for your transformation into a housefly?

Maybe instead of Emily taking you to school, you asked that she escort you to the hospital to see if the medical establishment has a cure. You board a public bus with Emily, but do you truly believe doctors can fix you? Buzz away from her to find answers on your own, and you may be drawn in by the delectable aroma of rotting foodstuffs in a dumpster, where you could be snared by a spider in its web or simply succumb to housefly instincts and forget about being human, giving yourself over to your insect appetite for the few days you have left before your natural lifespan ends. Stick with Emily en route to the hospital, and she'll have to feign acute illness for any doctor to see her in a timely manner without her parents present. Nervously waiting in the exam room for an emergency physician, you might wander off on your own and by pure luck happen upon the antidote to Uncle Bill's mask. Stay with Emily and you have a difficult time convincing any medical professional you're human, but if you do, the hospital may have exactly the specialist you need to restore your humanity. Is it possible to emerge without any lingering effects from your day in the body of a housefly?

Bugged Out! speaks with unexpected deep insight on the problems of growing up. As you reach adolescence and beyond, you'll change in ways you never foresaw. Your thought patterns and biological urges evolve, sometimes in directions that horrify you. You may find yourself walking taboo paths, shocked that what you once considered weird or gross now appeals to your new biology. Will loved ones recognize and stand up for the new you, or only see a disgusting housefly they've trained all their lives to swat? You’ll need an Emily on your side, who will understand it's still you and defend you from everyone who wants to squash you; if you have that, you can eventually sort out the complications of growing up, and become something similar enough to the old you that people accept what changes remain. Life is a rough ride as you age into the final form of yourself, but brave it as best you can and you may come out okay on the opposite end.

Packed with gritty action, subtle wisdom, and more immersive writing than usual for Choose Your Own Nightmare, Bugged Out! might be the best entry in the series. There's good storyline variety, and the narrative is allowed time to grow in between the reader's decisions so we feel pulled into the adventure. This book isn't intrinsically horror themed as most are in the series, but turning into an insect with no sure way to undo the change is a nightmare scenario. I wish more gamebooks followed the blueprint for excellence in these pages.

[Nick Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Already below the page count of the main Choose Your Own Adventure series, CYONightmare up to this point has also had little text on each page, making for short and unfulfilling reads. This entry is the first where the author uses most pages to the fullest, which is technically a plus; unfortunately, it's in service of becoming a fly. Nobody wants to be a fly. Of all the things you could've been transformed into in a horror-themed book, a fly is the worst possible choice. All you in Bugged Out! is buzz around trying to not get squashed, indulging in the book's central conceit that you can write notes as a fly to communicate with your friend, and sometimes eating garbage. Of all the experiences that didn't need to use each page to the fullest, it's that one.

[Javiernes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me gustan muchisimo estos libros de armar la propia historia según las elecciones, sobretodo las de terror/horror/suspenso, mas si tienen ese toque de cine los 80, donde lo grotesco y viscoso es primordial y detallado.
Lei todos los finales y eran todos divertidos, absurdos o un poco inquietantes, ojala tener libros de esta colección

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this one! So many different endings, but they were cohesive and made sense.

[Colton · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started this book, I expected a weak take on the "you turn into animal xyz and hijinks ensue" storyline. Hill does a pretty okay job of making the story flow and writes with a good bit of description, making you really feel as helpless as a fly would, constantly antagonized by humans, spiders, and the general danger of the world at large. Some of the endings are kind of weird, but most of them are at least semi-believeable. There did seem to be a lot more text in this book, with fewer illustrations and less white space, which was nice. The story, however, is pretty basic, and just doesn't really measure up to the better entries in this series. I would recommend it though, especially if you like strange science fiction stuff.