Major Detours

I received an ARC from Edelweiss
3

A road trip between 4 friends guided by one, Amelia's, late grandmother's tarot deck, turns into something far more mysterious- and dangerous- when they find out the truth about the deck. If the deck is truly so rare, and meant only for people the creator cared about, how did her grandmother get the deck in the first place? And are the rumors of the decks' powers just that, or could it be something more?

I didn't know what to expect from this story, but a choose your own adventure featuring tarot is both very my style and also an interesting idea. I like the choose your own adventure format, and love video games in that style, and I love that Sergi brought it into the modern YA. However, it didn't really pan out for me.

What I did really enjoy, beyond concept, was the "personality quiz" part of it in the back of the book. Adding that in was a great idea, and I had a good time with it after reading through the story itself.
I also appreciate the representation, including a gender questioning/nonbinary character!

For me, this book just didn't involve enough choice. Other than affecting your results in the back of the book your choices do almost nothing in the story itself. I know how quickly things go out of control when you add more branches or make the choices matter more, but it hardly felt like a choice based story.

I also didn't feel like the characters or plot were developed very well. Again, I know this is a hard balance when you're attempting to be interactive, and when you need to balance between the story/writing and the gimmick.
And the plot points themselves were pretty ridiculous and unrealistic, but in terms of a fun adventure I know that won't matter to plenty of readers.

I think this is a good try at an elevated choices novel, but not one that lived up to quite what I was hoping for.