Susie Gilmore’s Love Stuck is based on a cute idea: the protagonist can’t decide between two men, so about halfway through the book, she leaves it up to you: read only the left-hand pages for Bachelor #1, and only the right-hand pages for Bachelor #2. When I was a kid, I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books, and combining that technique with chick lit sounded like fun. Unfortunately for Love Stuck, cute and fun don’t make up for other shortcomings, like the jarring switches between first and third person, and the fact that one of the bachelors is a complete jerk, so it makes no sense that he’s even in the running. Also SPOILERS
SPOILERS
Also, as I fully expected, when I got to the end of the story based on the guy I picked, she decided he wasn’t the one after all, so then I had to go back and read about the other guy. This didn’t quite work, since for the sake of continuity, certain storyline were repeated (e.g., losing her job) that couldn’t have occurred twice but needed to be there because the author didn’t know which guy you’d pick first. Also, of course, when you get to the end of the second guy’s story, Jess decides he’s not the one either, so then there was a short epilogue with the requisite happy ever after ending. I don’t know, it just really didn’t work for me.