The best choose-your-own-adventure books for adults are Ryan North’s Shakespeare gamebooks, starting with To Be or Not To Be, a Hamlet remix with 110 endings. After that, try the Fighting Fantasy series if you want dice, stats and danger, or the original Choose Your Own Adventure titles, now back in print, for nostalgia. If you’d rather read on your phone, interactive story games give adults the same branching format with grown-up themes.
Why are adults reading choose your own adventure books? #
Mostly because they grew up with them. Bantam’s Choose Your Own Adventure series ran from 1979 to 1998 with 184 titles and sold more than 250 million copies, so a lot of today’s adults learned to read partly by flipping to page 47 to avoid a cave-in. The format has come back through reissues, crowdfunded gamebooks and apps.
Adult gamebooks also scratch an itch that regular novels don’t: you get to argue with the protagonist and win. For the full backstory, see the history of interactive fiction.
The best choose-your-own-path books for adults #
| Book or series | What it is | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| To Be or Not To Be (Ryan North) | Hamlet as a branching comedy, 740 pages, 110 endings | Readers who like literary jokes |
| Romeo and/or Juliet (Ryan North) | The same treatment for Shakespeare’s romance | Romance readers with a sense of humor |
| Fighting Fantasy | Adventure gamebooks with dice and stats | Fantasy fans who want a challenge |
| Choose Your Own Adventure (Chooseco) | The original series, back in print | Nostalgia |
| Interactive story apps | Branching stories on your phone | Readers who want romance, mystery or longer stories |
To Be or Not To Be #
Ryan North’s To Be or Not To Be (2013) retells Hamlet as a chooseable-path adventure in modern language. North launched it on Kickstarter on November 21, 2012 with a $20,000 goal and raised $580,905, which made it the most-funded publishing project on Kickstarter at the time. The finished book runs 740 pages with 110 possible endings, illustrated by a range of artists, and it was adapted into a game by Tin Man Games in 2015.
It’s funny, it’s clever about Shakespeare, and it rewards reading every ending. It’s the easiest recommendation for an adult who remembers the originals.
Romeo and/or Juliet and William Shakespeare Punches a Friggin’ Shark #
North followed up with two more Shakespeare books in the same spirit: Romeo and/or Juliet, which does for the tragic romance what the first did for Hamlet, and William Shakespeare Punches a Friggin’ Shark and/or Other Stories. If the first book lands for you, these are the obvious next reads.
Fighting Fantasy #
Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone created Fighting Fantasy, starting with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in 1982. The books use numbered sections, typically 400, and you roll six-sided dice to resolve fights using your character’s Skill, Stamina and Luck. The series sold 20 million copies in the 1980s and 1990s, and in March 1983 Fighting Fantasy books held the top three spots on the Sunday Times bestseller list.
It’s still going. Scholastic took over the rights in 2017, Ian Livingstone’s The Dungeon on Blood Island came out in September 2024, and Steve Jackson Games announced it had secured the U.S. rights, with the first books scheduled for early 2025.
The original Choose Your Own Adventure books #
The series started with Edward Packard’s The Cave of Time in 1979, based on an idea he first published in 1976 as Sugarcane Island. Chooseco relaunched the series in 2003 and began reissuing Packard’s titles in August 2025. They’re written for young readers, but they’re quick reads, and many adults revisit them for the memories.
How are adult gamebooks different from kids’ ones? #
- Themes. Adult gamebooks deal with grief, betrayal, ambition and romance more directly.
- Humor. Ryan North’s books are aimed squarely at adults who know the source material.
- Mechanics. Fighting Fantasy adds dice, stats and inventory, closer to a tabletop game.
- Length. To Be or Not To Be runs to 740 pages, which is a lot of Hamlet.
Most of them, like the originals, speak to you in the second person. We explain why that convention stuck in why interactive stories are written in second person.
Books or apps: which is better? #
| Gamebooks | Interactive story apps | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheating | Easy: keep a finger in the page | Hard: the app tracks your choices |
| Remembering choices | Only what the book asks you to note | Can remember everything and bring it back later |
| Length and branching | Limited by page count | Can be very large; 80 Days holds about 750,000 words |
| Romance | Rare | Common, with multiple love interests and routes |
| Cost | One-time purchase | Often free with optional purchases |
Apps have one big advantage for adults who read romance: many are built around it. Secret Fantasy, for example, is a library of interactive romances told as text messages. Pick a story (a mafia romance, a werewolf romance or a fae romance), and every reply you choose changes who trusts you, who falls for you and how it ends. Each story has twelve five-minute episodes and three romance routes, the current stories are slow burn and never explicit, and the plot is never locked behind a purchase. For more choice-based picks, see our interactive fiction games for beginners.
Tips for reading a gamebook as an adult #
- Use bookmarks, not fingers. Sticky tabs let you back up several choices at once.
- Map it. Sketching the branches on paper shows you how the author built the book.
- Read every ending. Many of the best jokes and twists are in endings you’d never choose.
- Read it with someone. Taking turns making choices turns a gamebook into a party game.
Frequently asked questions #
Are there choose your own adventure books for adults? #
Yes. Ryan North’s Shakespeare gamebooks, starting with To Be or Not To Be (2013), are written for adults, and the Fighting Fantasy series has a large adult readership. Interactive story apps offer the same format for many adult genres, including romance.
What was the first choose your own adventure book? #
Edward Packard’s Sugarcane Island, published in 1976, came first. Bantam’s official Choose Your Own Adventure series began in 1979 with Packard’s The Cave of Time.
Are there romance choose your own adventure books? #
Branching romance is rare in print, apart from comic takes like Romeo and/or Juliet. Most choose-your-own-path romance today lives in apps such as Choices: Stories You Play, Episode and Secret Fantasy, where you pick your love interest and the story tracks your choices.
How many endings does a choose your own adventure book have? #
It varies widely. To Be or Not To Be has 110 possible endings, while Fighting Fantasy books are built from around 400 numbered sections, with many ways for an adventure to end early.