Surf Monkeys (Choose Your Own Adventure) (Choose Your Own Adventures - Revised)

good

This was a fun book, though I think they forgot it was a choose your own adventure till about half way through, when the choices started. So many things that could have been choices (Choosing to fight a shark, or follow the surf monkeys) arent choices. That said, it is the most backstory filled and character developed choose your own adventure.

Before looking at the cover, I was expecting monkeys to be surfing, and wondering what it could possibly have to do with me.Not to worry, the Surf Monkeys are a surfing gang, and also environmentalist vandals. They start out as cowards, but in some endings, become brave.I am not one of those people who complains about different choices ending up in different realities. This book is extremely linear -- there is one story, and you can explore different parts of it. There is a place for those kind of books, too.In this story, I am old enough to be expected to stay home in Indiana for the summer doing home repairs for my mom, when I somehow wrangle a way to stay in California for the whole summer with my bachelor uncle Dave, who is WAY too laid back. The Surf Monkeys, who are older than me, are also tough enough to overpower some armed oil roughnecks. I am definitely under 21, because it tells me that when I have to investigate inside a bar for clues.This story foreshadows the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the extent that an oil rig built on a fault line in the ocean is known to be dangerous, but the callous oil company couldn't give two feces. I have noticed a consistent environmentalist theme through every CYOA book where it could be shoehorned in. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, because it really never gets super preachy.The adventures you will have are a bit on the bland side, but for the most part realistic enough (I do not count having the dolphins guide me to the ending, and transporting me around as realistic). I was not fan of the surfer lingo interspersed throughout, but it didn't get too out of hand.The main logical problem here is the plan of the oil rig guardians, to punish the surfers who are vandalizing the rig to stall it from becoming operational, is to kidnap a kid, and stash him aboard an oil tanker headed to Valdez, Alaska. What their plan is at that point is not clear. Kill him up there? Just drop him off and hope they never get caught? If some undocumented Mexican surfer teenager shows up in Valdez, Alaska wearing a wet suit, I can see this all over the front page of MSNBC.Oh, I forgot, the reason we can't go the police about the kidnapped friend of mine is that he is not legally in the US. I count that as a mature theme.I didn't find myself sighing and rolling my eyes as much as I expected to, hence the 3 stars. I also found three pieces of torn off notebook paper stashed in the book, by its previous owner, obviously doing the same thing I was, and methodically reading all of the endings. I like finding things stashed in used books, even if they are innocuous like this.