MARDI GRAS MYSTERY (Choose Your Own Adventure) [Paperback]

Louise Munro (Author)

Book Description

Series: Choose Your Own Adventure

Fiction: murder mystery

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Skylark (January 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553276956
• ISBN-13: 978-0553276954
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #264,024 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars This Mardis Gras Mystery could've taken place in Anchorage., July 23, 2011

By 

P. Macpherson (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: MARDI GRAS MYSTERY (Choose Your Own Adventure) (Paperback)

The plot of the Mardi Gras Mystery (Choose Your Own Adventure #65) has you visiting your uncle's New Orleans antique store during Mardi Gras only to get caught up in a ring of thieves trying to steal three voodoo artifacts from the store. There is a voodoo theme and the author, Louise Munro Foley, name-drops the Mardi Gras festival but it still feels like this story could've taken place anywhere on Earth, which is disappointing. Half of the choices you make result in you spending most of your time inside said antiques store. And at least three times the choices you make are irrelevant as the author has you change your mind and end up selecting the other action. At the other end of the spectrum there are at least three times where you go 5-7 pages without any choices being offered (despite many opportunities for them) only to reach an ending. Also a couple endings aren't really endings (you return from entertaining an old folks home, you write a letter to your mom) but your adventure ends regardless. And my first reading ended with everybody okay and the bad guys being arrested and yet the way it was written felt very bland. It had all the excitement of getting bills in the mail. Here's another example of the dull writing: "Two months later, back at home, you get home from a boring day at school...".

The writing also has some continuity problems, which isn't something that usually bugs me but here it made it a little confusing after my first reading. Francine's actions off the page are always changing, as are the villains' plans, despite your choices having no effect on them. And little things like a parade happening, rain, and what criminals know or don't know changes too for no apparent reason.

As for the pictures by Ron Wing, most of the people in them look heavily sedated. The very first picture shows something brightly glowing at the back of the antique store but the two characters walking towards it look like they're about to fall asleep. There's another picture on p.44 that's supposed to be of people enjoying a parade but resembles a scene from Batman when the Joker releases his poisonous laughing gas into a crowd. It's unintentionally weird/creepy. A decent chunk of the drawings don't display anything particularly exciting but that's the writer's fault for not writing more interesting scenes. I don't think kids will get much of a kick out of most of them. I noticed one art error where a character has a lit flashlight instead of the room being lit by an overhead light as described in the writing. I also noticed an error in the writing with two dockworkers on one page (and an accompanying picture) growing magically to three dockworkers the following page. Not a big deal, just a little confusing.

There are a few well-done good and bad endings but most are dull. And dull is the best way to describe this book. It's not awful or incompetent or anything, it's just bland. And that's a shame because Mardi Gras seems like a great setting for a mystery adventure in one of these books.