Batgrl: Bookish Hooha

So once upon a time back in October I saved this in my drafts folder and then forgot to finish/update it. The review that is, not the book. The book I had a huge amount of fun with, because it's packed with trope after trope from cheesy romance novels, though not all in a laughable way. Because I didn't take notes on it (yes, that's me, I'm one that would take notes on a Choose Your Own Adventure - CYOA book) I can't remember the specific moments that made me say "ouch, that is SO 1980s" or that made me roll my eyes (there was a lot of that). Still, I found stuff to amuse me, like any CYOA. I'll revisit the book for that alone. I can't at the moment - it's in storage. But I'll keep the book for nostalgia's sake, because I was able to live in London for a semester in the late 1980s, and the Sloane Ranger jokes were all over pop culture at the time. (US parallel: The Preppy, as in The Preppy Handbook.)

14 October 2013:

...and it's so wrong that there's no image of the cover with its various cartoon versions of theoretically-attractive men.

[LATER: And someone No Book Left Behind Book Blog has fixed the image! Huzzah!]

Because this book is a Choose Your Own Adventure book! And even better, it's from the UK. The late 1980s UK.

Title: Sex & Shopping (subtitle: It's a Game...It's a Book...It's Hilarious!)

 

Back cover: "You are Sophia Sogood. Young, impressionable, but no one's fool. You have your way to make in the world, and your eyes are set on the stars. Glamorous romances, a glittering career, instant celebrity: all is possible.

 

For in this gamebook, the future is in your hands. Where will it all end? Is shipping magnate Ajax Demestos merely a wily seducer or your passport to the good life? Will stylist Honey Muff make you the model of the decade or leave you to the tender tabloid mercies of Lord Gutter? Can money mogul Yuri Bond set you on the road to personal fortune or will that final flutter leave you penniless? Can Viscount Rollo Silverfoil take you away from all this?

 

Don't stop to ponder. The world is your Rolex oyster. You may come a cropper over a power lunch, you may find peace, happiness and an endless supply of the readies, but whatever happens you will be reduced to the helpless laughter by this wonderfully astute satire of the mad, bad, silly, sexy world in which we live.

 

Good luck! You'll need it."

So I'll attempt to review it sometime in the next few days. I hope it's as cheesy as I remember it. Er, it wasn't ever wildly amusing, I should say that right up front. I'm more hopeful to find some eyeroll-ish 80's references than that I'll actually laugh at anything in here.

Meanwhile I have an actual Choose Your Own Adventure book around here somewhere - something to do with vampires. I'm assuming I'll bump into it when I get around to the shelf where I have some of my old Doctor Who books...