Choose Your Own Adventure:
Eighth Grade Witch
By Andrew Gaska & E.L. Thomas
Based on the original written by C.E. Simpson
Valerio Chiola, Illustrator
Oni Press, 2021
136 Pages
Middle Grade
This is the first Choose Your Own Adventure graphic novel. It is based on the 2014 novel of the same name by C. E. Simpson, now presented with rich, inviting colors and artwork that will pull you into a fun, scary first-person horror story. Who publishes this ground-breaking new format? Oni Press, of course, home of both Courtney Crumrin and The Tea Dragon Society!
The illustrated format stays true to the experience; I didn’t have enough fingers to backtrack along all the paths I wanted to, requiring multiple re-reads, but providing enough of a unique experience each time through that I found myself lost in the maze of parallel possibilities.
Rabbit Hawthorn moves to a new town, and finds a new friend in Astrid. Or is she? The influence of the witch Prudence Deadly creeps into the fabric of the town. Are your family members magic users? Why does Astrid look so much like Prudence? The mean girls TP’ing your house on Halloween is the first, but eventually least of your worries.
Many of the early parallel realities only last a page or two before you die and then need to backtrack, but as the story grows, the number of possible endings develops. You can be killed anywhere from being murdered by grave robbers to having your head torn off by zombies! One of the mean girls may become possessed by an ancient witch, or you may discover that you yourself are a descendant of witches.
In one story branch, you are killed; in another timeline you have a seance that ends up resurrecting the spirit of Prudence. In some you meet another witch named Zora Belladonna, in others Astrid invites you to her coven of high school occultists. I have to say, I cheated many times to follow a fun looking page to its conclusion with no idea how I had gotten there to begin with. None of the rabbit holes seem to lead too far, so the book is less of a narrative than an experience of exploration surrounded by horror ambience.
