Dead Letter Office by Kira Snyder

Remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure Stories? They were great for an afternoon read when you were a kid. However, there wasn't any substance to the characters in those books. This book has it all. I was a tad worried when I heard this was an interactive book. Sometimes, interactive means weak story, but this is so not the case for Dead Letter Office. The book is fun and spooky. Celia has a great voice as narrator, and you feel invested in her journey. The choices were agonizing though. It doesn't feel like it should be difficult to chose this or that, but I wanted to see some of the characters more, and I knew that my choice would determine who I would get to read about. After I finished the novel, I went back and selected the other choices to see what I had missed. There was little that changed except that you got to hang out with different characters, and you learned some bits of information that weren't important to the story as a whole, but did contribute to the enjoyment of the story.

The mystery was a little weak and some conclusions required a great leap of faith. However, the book more than makes up for this with really intriguing characters. I loved Tilly, and she was one reason that I was hesitant to read in the first place. I'm not really into witches and was very skeptical about reading a book that contained one. Tilly won me over with her enthusiasm and pluck. Donovan and Luc seemed interchangeable, but I am thinking that is because of their minor roles in the book. I am hoping to see more of both of them in the sequel. All in all, these are very minor quibbles with the book. I thought it was a good, solid read. Even if the story weren't interactive, it would be a great read. I definitely plan to get the next book in the series.