Maybe Tonight?. by Bridie Clark. August 6, 2013. Roaring Brook Press. 224 pages. ISBN: 9781596438163

Gossip Girl meets Choose Your Own Adventure in this new Snap Decision book published by Macmillan. Written in the second person, this book puts the reader into the shoes of a female freshman at a fancy private school, on the night of an annual outdoor party called Midwinter’s Night Dream. The story is told in a series of snapshots, and at the end of each snapshot, the reader is given two choices. Depending on which path the reader chooses, the main character winds up in different situations with her roomates, her best male friend who might become more, her best female friend’s boyfriend and even the tomboy in her group of friends who may or may not be attracted to other girls.

This book’s chatty tone and continually dramatic turns of events make it instantly appealing. The writing is fast-paced and engaging, and in just a few short pages, the reader feels a strong connection to the main character and already feels well-acquainted with each of the key players in her life. When I was a teen, I loved to contemplate my fate, wondering how this or that decision or encounter might impact my future, and lamenting lost opportunities. This book taps into that very teenage mindset and provides the reader with the chance to go back and change her mind if things don’t go the way she had hoped.

My issue with this book, though, is that nearly every decision made by the main character is a choice between a terrible fate and a worse one. In some instances, it is inevitable that either someone will try to date rape her, or she will lose all of her friends. Other choices involve either getting thrown out of school or being forced to live in exile when her best friend gets so angry she can’t forgive her. There are a few choices that lead to happy endings, but more often than not, there is no “right” answer and no chance for a positive outcome. For a story that is meant to take place over just one or two nights at a prestigious high school, it involves way too many “issues” from academic probation to drug addiction to date rape to outright expulsion from school. Teens already feel that so many situations are life and death. This book heightens that fear, and I think it promotes a wholly unrealistic sense of how important each of our decisions really is. Surely not every moment of our lives is so precariously perched on the edge of disaster.

Maybe Tonight? is a fast-paced, frivolous novel with a fun concept that might appeal to reluctant reader girls in grades 8 to 10. Readers who want more realistic and nuanced depictions of boarding school life might try E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks or Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (which is an adult novel, but has lots of teen appeal.)

I received a digital ARC of Maybe Tonight? from Macmillan via NetGalley. 

For more about this book, visit Goodreads and Worldcat.

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