D+

A Girl Walks into a Bar

A Girl Walks into a Bar is a choose your own romance book, and I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that maybe this format either isn’t for me, or doesn’t particularly work in the genre. I’ve reviewed two similar books in the past. One, I hated. Another was cute and fun, but the awesome options were heavily skewed toward one direction.

The first decision you’re asked to make in A Girl Walks into a Bar is what type of underwear you should put on to meet your friend Melissa at a bar. The options are something comfy, a control top pair, a g-string, or go commando. It was also the first cringe I gave the book.

Because you make choices that affect your “character,” it’s hard to get a romance from start to finish in the traditional sense. There’s no “plot” and the choices typically end up in sexual situations. So I’d label this story as more of a “choose your own erotic scenario.” There are a breadth of characters from a sexy photographer, a charming bartender, and a mysterious bodyguard. Plus, there are heterosexual and lesbian pairings. The variety is probably the best aspect of the book.

Where it fails for me is how it seems to try so hard. A lot of the scenes and interactions reminded me of soft-core stuff you’d see late at night on HBO or Cinemax. It was like The Red Shoe Diaries in book form, which isn’t a label I’m using to deride the book. But everything felt shallow in the sense that each interaction with a potential partner read more like a cliche fantasy. For example, you meet a woman in the bathroom at a bar and she sexily helps fix your eyeliner. She hands you a flier for an art exhibition. If you decide to go, you realize the woman you met in the bathroom is a photographer and her exhibition consists of photos of nude women. Lots of up close vagina shots and the photographer alludes to sleeping with her models. Do you see what I mean? Step by step fantasy fulfillment, but not much character development.

That being said, the one bright moment was dramatically reading the options aloud to my boyfriend and letting him choose. Maybe save this one for drunken, party fodder when you’re all tired of playing flip cup.

– Amanda

How will your night out end?
You make the rules.
You’re at one of the hottest bars in town, all dressed up for a fabulous girls’ night out with your best friend, when she cancels. What do you do now?
In this novel, YOU make the decisions.
Will you do body shots with a rock star? Cozy up to the hot bartender? Follow a mysterious woman to a rather unusual exhibition? Investigate a suave millionaire’s box of tricks? Take a joyride with a buff bodyguard? Or maybe what you want is closer to home than you realize. . . .
So many options. . . . All you have to do is choose.