54. Life games #1 - Woman Up the Corporate Ladder by Angela Harper

This was a crazy thrift store find, a Choose Your Own Adventure for the 1980s career woman.  I wonder how well it did at the time.  I can see how somebody would have come up with this idea as CYOA's were extremely successful in the 80s.  However, the demographic seems like a major leap.  For some reason, the concept of the reader taking an active part in the narrative (which is also the base concept of role-playing games and ultimately video games) seems for some reason to really only resonate with nerdy types, which back in the 80s was predominantly male (and young, though less predominantly).  Happily, this is slowly improving, but I still don't see a market for "normal" grown-ups to read books like these.  I'd be curious how well they did.

This book was a fun read, more fun than I expected.  I thought at first that I might just flip through it or read a few of the storylines.  I ended up reading every single possible outcome.  It's very digestible and a real page turner because every decision leads to a different path and you want to learn what happens.  It actually gets somewhat outrageous, though never totally insane.  You can end up in Brazil, have affairs with your boss (or reject his advances), decide to take a bribe, go after opponents and so on.  There are a lot of ethical decisions, yet not a consistent ethical message.  Sometimes doing the right thing, doesn't end up so well and sometimes making a bad decision can work out for you.  It felt a bit random.  There were some quite bleak and sad endings as well.  

I feel like a man wrote this, but I am not super confident about that.  I'd love to hear a backstory on these and I'll keep my eye out for them.