A new book series becomes pro-choice

 

 

Imagine: You are a 33-year-old actor with no job prospects, no girlfriend and no ambition. To make matters worse, lately,  you’ve been feeling like life is passing you by. But then one morning you get a call from some kidnappers who are holding Julia, a girl you just went on a date with, hostage. It’s up to you — and the series of decisions  you make — to rescue her.

Does the format sound familiar? It should. That’s because author Bob Powers has created an  irreverent, hip take on those Bantam “Choose Your Own Adventure” books from your childhood. Called “You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero!” [Thomas Dunne Books, $13], Powers updates the cultish genre for a new, slacker generation. It’s up to you to man up, go to graduate school, and save a cute girl in the process, depending on how you’re feeling that day.

Powers, 35, is a comedy writer who lives in New York City. He grew up on a steady diet of “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, which first hit stores in 1979.

“I think they were some of the first books I read,” he says. “Some of them have been recently re-released and I bought four or five and found myself getting into them, which was slightly embarrassing when I was sitting on the train. I did the thing where you have your fingers in all of the different pages trying to keep track.”

It’s important to note that Powers’ Just Make a Choice!  series (he will have a second book coming out in Spring of 2009 entitled, “The Terrible Horrible Temp-to-Perm Debacle”) is for adults only. 

“The humor focuses on adult problems,” says Powers. “I don’t know if younger readers would get a kick out of a man wondering about what to do for a job.”