What If... Everyone Knew Your Name (What If...)

Choose Your Destiny #1

by Liz Ruckdeschel, Sara James

Meet Haley Miller. She’s a 15-year-old girl of average height, average weight, and an average sense of style. Installed in her first public high school, Haley faces the toughest choices of her young life. And guess what? She’s all yours.In this interactive novel, readers lead Haley through the halls of Hillsdale High for better or for worse. Until graduation do you part. Do you guide her away from the pitfalls of peer pressure? Or into the vortex of bad boys and parties? Send her to homecoming with the captain of the soccer team . . . or have her skip the dance to go on a road trip with the hot rebel. Give Haley a makeover or teach her to love herself the way she is. Pick which crowd she’ll hang with. Tell her how often to do her homework. And decide whether she drinks or inhales.You determine her fortune. Her grades, her friends, her love life, her future. With Haley’s many positive traits, you should have no trouble achieving success . . . or will you? It’s all in the way you work, love, and play with Haley Miller, the girl with the most potential at Hillsdale High.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Chick Lit, Choose Your Own Adventure, Contemporary, Romance

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 27, 2006

Reviews

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce for TeensReadToo.com

WHAT IF...EVERYONE KNEW YOUR NAME is an interesting idea. It's a lot like those Choose Your Own Adventure books you read as a kid. The story is about Haley, a fairly average fifteen-year-old girl who has just moved to suburban New Jersey and is starting at her first public high school. She starts out average, so that the reader can pretty much choose everything that happens to her as the story goes on.

You make every little decision for her, even the ones that seem really minor, like riding the bus to school or getting a ride from her father. You decide who she wants to be friends with and what crowd she wants to be a part of. You decide everything about her.

While an interesting idea, and fairly well-written, this book isn't for everyone. If you're all about finding out what will happen, this book might not be for you, because you decide what happens. It's a cool concept, though, and a fun read, especially since you can read it more than once, with a different story and outcome. The characters aren't particularly three-dimensional, but I guess they have to be simple enough so that it is believable that they would make any one of the very different choices you choose from. This book is fun, but not a must-read.

[Brianna (The Book Vixen) · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was younger, about 11-12 years old, I used to read the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Remember those? What happens in the story is completely up to you. You make the choices; you choose which path to take all the way up to the ending. I would always go back to the beginning and start all over to try to get a better ending. The very first CYOA book I read was The Worst Day of Your Life (#100). I think I died in a tornado.

Flash forward to today and to a series called A Choose Your Destiny Novel. Same premise as CYOA except you're a teenage girl in a teenage world with choices to make. Choices that will either make you the most popular girl in school or choices that will make you commit social suicide.

I learned of this series from Mandy at Edge of Seventeen. She did a review where she posted her journey as Haley and, in her words, she died a horrible social death. She asked if someone was up to reading the book and blogging about the choices they would make to see if they could come out with a better ending. I took her up on the challenge and she sent the book my way.

Let me take you my journey as Haley, aka Haley Vixen:

The book starts off with Haley Vixen moving across the country with her parents, from California to New Jersey. Her father's job took him cross-country so now Haley Vixen will have to go to a new school and make new friends. What a social nightmare! Until she sees the boy next door, Reese, who's a hottie. Next morning, Haley Vixen's waiting for the bus with Reese, hoping to get a seat next to him. A convertible with the popular girls stops in front of them and Reese catches a ride with them.

It's time for you to make the first move. Are you going to have Haley Vixen call her dad and beg him to come pick her up or are you going to make her brave the bus alone?

I'm going to brave the bus solo.

On the bus, I meet Irene. We don't get off to a good start but Irene does help me with my look. Per Irene's advise, I ditch my sweater, put my hair down and sport my reading glasses. When we arrive at school, Irene also saves me from Annie, the Hillsdale High welcome committee. I check out my schedule. Irene tries to convince me to switch to her 3rd period Honors History class to the Art class that she and Johnny Lane, another hottie and a friend of Reese's, are in.

It's only the first day of school and already two paths are diverging in a yellow hallway. The rest is up to you. Make Haley Vixen take the one less traveled or have her preserve her perfect transcript.

I'm going to ditch Honors History and go to art class with Irene and Johnny Lane.

In art class, Irene gets mad at me for peeking at her portrait of Johnny Lane. As the bell rings to signal the end of class, Irene tosses her books in her bag and leaves hastily, without me!

Do you think Irene is overacting and want to send Haley Vixen home at the end of the day? Or do you want Haley Vixen to apologize to her new friend and try and work things out?

I'll try to work things out with Irene.

After school, I go to the restaurant where Irene works and we kiss and make up. Then walk in the popular girls who gave Reese a ride to school this morning. They check me out and look me up and down and finally invite me to go with them.

Do you keep the talented Irene in the picture or do you widen Haley Vixen's circle and possibly edge her toward the popular crowd?

I like Irene over the popular girls so I'm choosing Irene.

Irene ditched class and I covered for her. I went looking around the school for her and found her near some graffiti artwork.

Should Haley Vixen be suspicious of Irene's behavior or do you think she should trust her friend?

Public display of art doesn't bother me. I'm trusting Irene.

Irene takes me shopping at a vintage clothing store. We're bonding. I get a text from Gretchen, my BFF from back home in Cali. She shares some gossip with me then we disconnect. Then the clique girls walk into the store.

Should Haley Vixen continue her friendship with Irene or go to the Halloween party with the clique girls?

Coco and her crew are annoying me so I'll stick with Irene.

I go to Irene's house to chill. What do you know, she's a bookworm just like me. I spy an ancient old leather bound and ask her about it. It's an ancient Chinese oracle. There's a picture in the book that looks just like the graffiti artwork I saw Irene near. We ask a couple questions and get some vague answer. Irene knows my question but won't tell me hers. Hmmm. My dad's here to pick me up.

Should Haley Vixen talk to a teacher about the vandalism, or take a step back from Irene and go check out a rock show (where Reese will likely be) or should Haley Vixen stand by her friend no matter what and maybe get to know a certain cute photographer (that she met at the vintage clothing store) a little better?

I'm not about to rat out my one and only friend and Reese is complicated so I'll go with Irene (again) and check out the photographer.

Some kid from school gets falsely accused of the graffiti so Shaun, a guy who's crushing on Irene even though her mind is on Johnny Lane, comes clean. Shaun gets some detention time and Irene, Devon (photog boy) and myself volunteer to help clean the mess. When we're all done we all walk home together. Devon talks about his photography and mentions that he's submitted some work to The Mission magazine. He said that the winner gets a pair of tickets to Frisco! I would love to win free tickets to go back home. I would take Irene with me and the three of us would have a blast. We decide to go swimming at Shaun's place.

Are Devon and Frisco too tempting to resist or is winning that contest a long shot and besides, Haley Vixen's better off with Reese?

I'm so over Reese. I want to enter that contest and visit my friends from Cali. And photog boy's cute.

I'm done swimming. My mind is on that contest. I get out of the pool to dry off and spy Irene's sketchbook peeking out of her book bag. I don't know what possessed me but I ripped out the portrait of Johnny Lane before anyone saw me. I left shortly after. The next day, I take the drawing to an art store and get it matted. I submit it (for Irene of course) and it won! Great, how am I going to tell Irene that her work is going to be published in a magazine. I asked her about it and she clearly doesn't want to show off her work. Now I've done it. How am I going to tell her that her work won and we get to go to Frisco together?

Should Haley Vixen fess up and tell Irene about The Mission or will Irene never forgive her, and that Haley Vixen should tear up the tickets and pray Irene never lays eyes on a copy of The Mission instead?

Tough call. I guess I'll come clean and tell Irene. I hope she'll forgive me and go with me to Frisco.

I confess to Irene but she already knew! She knew I took the portrait from her sketchbook. She forgave me but warned me to never look at her sketchbook again. She also told me she wasn't take me to Frisco. Damn! Devon pulls up in his birthday ride and the four of us (Shaun, Devon, Irene and myself) go for a spin. I ask Irene if she's taking Shaun to Frisco and she tells me that she's taking me! She was just making me sweat for a moment.

So, in spite of all her mistakes, life was working out for Haley Vixen and she couldn't wait to see where it would take her next. Like on that date with Devon, and after that, California with Irene and Gretchen. What more could Haley Vixen want?

The End.

[Emily]

I read these books as a kid and I am feeling nostalgic! We really should have more "choose your own adventure" books for adults.

[Heidi Lil' Chip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always been curious about books that you make the choices in and thought they'd be fun, so when I saw this at the library I got it cuz why not?

Now maybe it's because of the paths I took, but I don't get the title. "What if everyone knew your name " to me says she's famous now, but this book was just about her going to a new school.

I think I accidentally took the shortest path possible😂
My path: 1-16, 17-26, 38-45, 77-81, 115-118, 171-177, 199-204, 232-237, 279-284, 331-334 END

[Fera Gilroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good book, it was shorter than I thought it would be. Whenever it made you pick her future I was so scared because it felt like she was a real person and that I could ruin her life!😅 But I loved the Content and the story! This book is about a girl who just moved into New Jersey from California, she finds her self stuck in a mountain of hard dicisions, friends over boys? Popular group or real friends?

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is liking finding your own destiny. you have to choose wisely when you are in high school. The book then shows you where you will end if it were real. you just have to choose what you do in the book, then read. mine ended with a happy ending it depends what you wil do and what path you will take, which really helped me in real life.

[kris]

I read the first 2/3 books in this series and enjoyed them at the time, but on a very surface level. I could read one in maybe an hour (because let's be honest, you're actually reading less than 100 pages of the book) and then I was finished and had moved on. While it was fun to choose what happened in the book, none of the options were that great. Everything was just pretty boring and bland.

[Trisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Even the simplest choices will affect Hailey's social and academic standing. But no matter what she does next, you can be certain Hailey's whole world is about to change..."

I found the premise of this book cute. A girl named Hailey has moved and she is starting at a new school. I mean, she can be anyone right. This book makes you look at Hailey's choices and really dig in to how it may or may not affect her high school years. It was interesting because I went every route for Hailey, making her the homecoming queen or the art and newspaper geek, I let her pursue the photographer and then the cute neighbor. It was funny how I started to have moral objections to the other routes I needed to go and it was good to read something that made me think about other's lives and the crud they have to shoulder each day. But there were a lot of points in this book that were silly so you just have to keep in mind it's a YA but a younger ya story.....

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if...Everyone Knew Your Name is a terrific book. The two authors, Liz Ruckdeschel and Sara James, make the story line ten times better by using descriptive language. Haley Miller is the new girl to the small town. The worst part of all of this is that she hasn't been to a public school before. Of course Haley is nervous about meeting friends, getting good grades, and meeting boys. She is cursed with the fact that she has just moved into the house right next to Reese, the cutest boy in school. The mean girl of the school, Coco and her gang, beat up on Haley because they have loved Reese forever.
My favorite part about What if...Everyone Knew Your Name is the feeling that made me want to help Haley and be her friend. Haley goes through all these ups and downs, but it all comes together at the end. Liz Ruckdeschel and Sara James write with a unique style that you'll love when you read the book. This book expresses the inner feelings that all teenage girls have. The theme of What if...Everyone Knew Your Name is to listen to your heart and know that things will get better.
The only thing I didn't like about this book was that after every chapter it had a paragraph in bold stating two different opinions. If you had one opinion then the book instructs you to go to a certain page and if you had the other opinion, then you go to another page. This confused me a little bit. Overall, this is an amazing book. I rated it 4 out of 5 stars. I recommend this to any teenage girl.

[Dayneiris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love choosing what to do in the book. I love Haley's character because she is new but she still gets people to actually like her and make friends in the first week she gets to her knew house. I kind of like Coco because she's a basic mean girl. The book kind of reminds me of the movie Mean Girls because Haley's the new girl who becomes friends with the popular girls who run the school. I love that there's some romance going on but that it's not the main focus. I loved this book and have read many others in the series What If.. I recommend this to teen girls because you get to make decisions on what the character does and it's fun and interesting to read.

[Jesenia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really, really good. What I loved most about it was that you could pick what you wanted the character to do in certain situations. Which was cool because you get a different ending every time you read it. It doesn't have a lot of drama or anything like that but it has just a little bit of mystery on boys and school, plus popularity which plays a big part. I would recommend this book to teens from 8-12 grade for what its based on and the type of grammar used in the book. For a rating I would give this book a 4 out of 5 because I didn't really think the ending wrapped it up perfectly, it could've been better.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great! Loved the beginning and the exciting ending. I would say, that it kept you guessing on what paths to follow, sometimes, you would make the wrong dicision, and will have to repeat everything again. I love those kind of stories!

[Traci Kismarton · Rating 1 out of 5]

started it- didnt finish it... thought it was stupid. I think my hopes were too high. I expected it to be more fun like the old choose your own adventure books...

[Holly Letson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*
---------------------
This was one of the better books of this series, even though the ending I got was kind of bittersweet. But, I enjoyed that it had a little bit more of a plot.

[Lukas Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having a book that has the element of "choose your destiny" is extremely out there and highly difficult to make since authors need to have multiple chapters at the right places at the right time to make up the right storylines for those options. This book is a decent read, but I feel like it's a bit too harsh for the reader to go all the way back to the beginning of the book just because he/she has made a bad choice and ended up with a bad ending. If the reader made it up that way, so be it. The fact that this book is a "choose your destiny" type of book is like practice for real-life choices soon to come. What really makes this exciting is that the options that you, as the reader, can relate to so much. For example, the main character has her first time in high school and it's a new school she's never been to. This results are determined by the reader and the choices are similar to real life choices, like "Do I skip a class and go to my friends class instead" or "Do i be by myself on the bus and look lonely or be with a goth-like girl who can be my friend and not look lonely, but look like I'm crazy cause she looks like a psycho?" Overall maybe one of my favorite books to read, although a bit too harsh on the reader.

[Jill]

I picked up this book at a Little Free Library because I read it in high school and I wanted the nostalgia! I remember thinking the concept was so cool as it is really a “choose your destiny” style novel where at the end of each chapter you make choices and can really make your own story. HOWEVER this felt like weird misogynistic propaganda lol. Like I am sure at 16 I didn’t realize it but the main character really seems to have the “best” outcomes when she chooses the nice boy over literally any other choice! Lol and she constantly hates on the other girls and there is a lot of triggers in here without warning like sexual assault, and eating disorders - I enjoyed it for the shock value but unless the ones that came out in 2009 that I didn’t read are less disparaging themes for young adults idk lol. 😂

[Michele Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reread was very boring and did not make any sense. I think to get the best story for the book, one has to pick the most out there choices no matter where they lead. I really did not like the fact that New Jersey is the setting and it does not feel like the authors did their research. The main character is from California and moves to New Jersey and she just doesn't say anything that would make this feel true. Haley does not comment on the difference in weather, accents, mall stores, or even the general lifestyle difference. It almost would have been better if the author did not tell us the setting or give us the specifics of where she moved from.

[Edie Walls · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remember seeing these books as a kid and being intrigued but never reading them. I should have let that intrigue remain - this was easily the worst choose your own adventure style book I've ever read. The protagonist was annoying and inconsistent, and beyond that the story is really easy to break if you want to try to hang out with more than one person. For Irene especially, there's only one scene where she's introduced as your friend, but many many ways to end up on the Irene path, which doesn't make any sense unless she's your friend. Skip this and read literally any other romcom YA book from the time, they're all the same and all better than this.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved these books when I was a teenager and thought of them recently and decided I wanted to re-read one. It wasnt as good as I remember it being but the concept of a choose your own adventure that isn't fantasy or horror is still a fun idea. It was nice to take a walk down memory lane but that's just about all this book is good for now. It's too outdated for current teenagers and it really doesn't have a good timeline that it follows. It gets confused on things you know depending on your path and the first path I took was really short. Oh well.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Storyline is fine for a teen book. My problem is the jumping around. Even for a choose your own adventure, the flow was off. You could make a choice and start reading something that felt like you missed something (which usually you did if you had read a different storyline you would have known what was going on). Just a little more editing to make sure all the choices made sense into a story was needed. Otherwise, I enjoy making my own story.

[Jelly & Beans · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE ITTTT 💯🤍🤍!

I read it all in just one-sitting. It's like you're the director of this story. You can choose your own ending, scenes, or whatever you want.

It could be risky without considering the consequences of your decisions for the ending. But it's totally worth it if you want to be realistic based on your perspective.

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was awful. Choose your own destiny books normally make sense when you bounce around to different chapters. This one did not, and there were characters mentioned that were never introduced beforehand so the book ended up making no sense.

[Teresa Burk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book since i could make my own choices and do what I wanted to do and get the outcome I wanted.

[Linsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I loved how it was up to you decide what Haley in the story did. It was a quick read and I will reading reading other books in this series in the future.

[Jordan W. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was ok just needs a little more action

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2019 PopSugar Reading Challenge - A book with a question in the title

[Angel Padgett]

Very fun to read. One of my favorite books

[Brynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book. I enjoyed how it was a choose your own adventure style book.

[Jessica Noe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The nostalgia is real. Ignore me as I go back to the middle/high school days of reading these books

[Amilcar Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

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