#7. You Are a Shark Who Devours the Alternate Universe Versions of Itself (It's, Uh ... Complicated)
Bantam Books
The story opens with our hero hiking alone in the remote mountains of Nepal, an endeavor which, based on the illustrations, he has elected to tackle in a short-sleeve shirt and loafers. Somehow you manage to make it to an ancient temple, then you suddenly lose consciousness and "feel your life slowly slipping away." That's all on the first page, by the way. The rest of the book consists of you inhabiting the bodies of various animals until the temple decides you've learned your lesson and removes the curse that it placed on you because you were arrogant enough to tackle the Himalayas in business casual.
All of the CYOA books were great at creative deaths. They were the Jigsaw Killer of children in the '80s and '90s. But this book took it to another level, with descriptions of your flesh being greedily devoured by killer whales, lions, and sharks. In one ending, you become a pig being raised for its meat. The book is careful to point out that you retain enough human awareness to know of your eventual fate as stacks and stacks of BLTs.
Bantam Books"Which won't be easy, since the thought of you sizzling on the griddle makes you so, so hungry."
Perhaps most unsettling are the shark and octopus storylines: The octopus path ends when a shark doesn't fall for your ink-spewing trick, and it finds your calamari body delicious. Alternately, while inhabiting a shark's body, you can eat an octopus who ineffectively tries to use ink to escape.
Are ... are you eating yourself?
Yes, you're almost certainly eating yourself. That's some serious multiverse-level mind-screwing for a book aimed at 10-year-olds.
Bantam BooksEven the shark is kind of fucked up about the whole thing.
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