Raw, relatable, and terrifyingly real.

I was expecting a Choose Your Own Adventure type of story, filled with tropes and cliches. I have never been more glad to be wrong. The narrative is so true to the experience of growing up as a teenage girl in the Midwest that I found myself entirely transported back to that time of my life. I’m now heavily doubting all the times I’ve shunned the use of second-person narrative because this was incredible!

Raising Women by Shannon Waite is an interactive novel that lets you shape the protagonist’s journey through a series of life choices, starting at age 16. In theory, everyone’s story will be different, depending on the decisions they make. I tried two paths: one based on choices I think I would’ve made as a teen, and another deliberately making the worst decisions possible... but I didn’t enjoy either trajectory.

Interactive novels usually thrive on being plot-driven, but this character-driven take doesn’t work as well with the format. The story lacked the excitement and unpredictability you expect from this type of book, and there were too many moments where I wasn’t given any real choice—just clicking through to the same outcome. The concept is intriguing, but the execution didn’t quite land for me.

This was a really unique book. Waite's writing brings you right into the story and I think following these characters was really interesting and overall a great story.

While this is a super interesting concept and I love the idea of an interactive novel, I just don't think it translate well to e-book reading, especially on a kindle that doesn't sync up pages properly.

Ok this was a fun book. I loved the interactiveness, I’ve never read a book like this before. You feel for the main character that she wants to belong and just have friends - although Roman really isn’t the best option. I actually knew someone similar to Roman when I was in high school so I get her lure. The writing is pretty jumpy but made me just think of a high schoolers brain or Roman’s drug brain. The different options were fun and I found they just all circled around to each vs it being new which is the reason for the 4 stars.

I was really excited about reading my first interactive novel but it didn't work for me. My choices led to quite a short story where nothing really happens. All together it felt disjointed and it was unclear when it ended. Additionally the plot or characters didn't entertain me.

Raising Women by Shannon Waite is an interactive novel about being a teenager and growing up into adulthood. I’ve never read an interactive novel, and I’m happily surprised by how much I loved it !A unnamed teenager is faced with some really hard and adult problems, and you choose how she will continue the story.

First of all, I tried saying no to all the decisions, no she doesn’t want to do this, and no she shouldn’t do this. I was thinking with my adult brain. The fun thing is, you can go back, and change your decisions and you’ll have an different story !

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for the ARC.
Raising Women will be published on the 11th of October !

Full Disclosure: I received an Advanced Reader's Copy of Raising Women by Shannon Waite from the author via NetGalley. This book should be available to the public starting October 11, 2024.

When I read the description for Raising Women by Shannon Waite, I knew I needed to read it. It is described as an interactive novel about growing into womanhood. I LOVE LOVE LOVE a choose-your-own-adventure book, game, movie, whatever so this was a no-brainer. I've also made it into womanhood successfully by many definitions, so how bad could I get it wrong? Hint: I got it really wrong. The good news is I could go back and try again. Reading it on Kindle made it fairly easy to jump to the right section. Going back was less easy. This is not a sweet coming-of-age book. You are a teenage girl, but you have to deal with very adult situations and sometimes uncomfortable situations. Keep that in mind if you decide to gift this book! I still had a lot of fun ruining my life.

As someone who's first reading love was the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, and whose current fixation is weird girl lit, I should have loved this. As it was, I just liked it.

The interactive novel element is interesting, especially as all the choices you can make are varying degrees of bad and self destructive, but I felt it was a little underused - you make maybe five or six choices in a play through, and the stories you end up choosing are very good but not groundbreaking - they're all vaguely reminiscent of something from Emma Cline's Daddy.

If you're looking for a quick feel bad read with a twist, or if you're an Emma Cline fan, give it a go.

*Raising Women* offers a unique experience for readers who enjoy more experimental, non-linear storytelling. The choose-your-own-adventure style is both intriguing and challenging, providing a level of complexity that had me revisiting the story several times. I was impressed by how well the characters were fleshed out, despite the limitations of the format, and there were definitely some storylines that really stood out to me as compelling and well-crafted.

That said, not every path worked for me. Some felt a little disjointed or lacked clarity, and a few seemed to come out of left field. I also found myself unsure of when I had reached the end of certain narratives—it would’ve been helpful to have a clearer sense of closure at those points. Still, I appreciated the accessible writing style, which made it easy to dive back in and try different routes without feeling too overwhelmed.

Overall, I enjoyed the novelty of the format and the depth of the discussion within the story. If you’re into interactive fiction and like a bit of ambiguity, this one is worth checking out.

For lovers of the unconventional form, Raising Women provides a destructive adventure of your own doing. I did multiple read throughs of this book and I enjoyed the complexities of the discussion. The characterizations of the characters is interesting and detailed considering the limited format available. While there were some pathways that were quite interesting and engaging, others fell flat, were too ambiguous, or simply seemed to come out of nowhere. However, the writing was easily digestible and made me want to go back and try different routes.

I am obsessed. This was such a unique and refreshing adventure. I went through three different ways and each one had my mind in shambles. I truly never knew what would happen. I wish we got more characters development but I can imagine that would be borderline impossible with this format.

Not rating this bc I'm honestly not even sure how to. I don't know if I actually enjoyed it, but it was compulsively readable.

I think I might have ended up reading multiple endings by accident (whoops) bc there was no indication that it had ended, so I just turned the page and was suddenly on a different path. Which was fine bc I probably would have gone back to try other options anyway, but a THE END or something would have been nice and relieved that ambiguity.

This is the second adult CYOA/interactive novel I've read this year, and I definitely preferred this to the other.