Name: Major Detours
ISBN: 9780762471416

Zachary Sergi

The reader makes choices for four college-bound best friends who take an occult-centered road trip and embark on a mystical scavenger hunt across the West Coast, uncovering the mysteries of their tarot deck.

A Choices Novel

Major Detours

Choose your own adventure, but add teen angst and romance. Pretty good if you enjoy Tarot.

Charlie Winchester 

Frida Kahlo

I received an eARC copy from Perseus Books and Running Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As a child, I enjoyed "choose your own adventure/end" books so much; Major Detours brought back so many memories, memories I thought slipped my mind. It made me feel like a child again, keeping 3-4 bookmarks to be able to find the beginning of that specific story and know my way back just to, yet again, branch it out in a different direction. 

Four friends, Amelia, Chase, Chloe, and Logan, are starting their road trip to find out what mysteries lie behind the deck of tarot cards Amelia's grandmother left her. Four cards are missing from the deck of cards, hidden by the deck's creator Pirelli, and this family-like group of friends is determined to find them, to have this one last adventure before their next major step in life - college. The clues for this unusual scavenger hunt to find the missing cards will take them on a journey filled with danger, adventure, self-discovery, and... realisation that they are not the only ones looking for them. I was hyped to the max with all these details, intrigues, and "insecurities" with all the choices I had; I kept asking myself: "What would have happened had I chose the other option?" Of course, I could have always come back and choose another one, but the anticipation would remain. 

As much as I loved the concept of choosing, the plot, and the mysterious air the deck of tarot cards brought to this story, I could not get involved with the characters nor the format of the ebook I received. The characters felt a bit boring and undeveloped throughout the story, and I had difficulties connecting with them. We do not see them learning anything new about tarot, or it was my mistake to expect that there would be something new to learn about it. The only greater character-developing moment ended up being Logan's and Chase's misunderstanding of what they both want from each other and what direction their relationship will move to. 

Another thing was the book formating. There was no page numbering anywhere whatsoever, so reaching a moment to "turn to page..." was slightly inconvenient, as I had no clue what page that would be; there were no hyperlinks either. I was thinking about reading this book without paying attention to choices, but that action would defeat the book's concept. These pesky details confused me and negatively affected my joy in reading this "choose your own adventure/end" book. So, in the end, I could have only hoped that the pages I went to were the ones I was supposed to go to. Speaking of choices, some of those did not make any real difference in the plot, no significant changes that would represent the book's title; the story mostly remained the same. Sometimes, less is truly more. 

If we put aside these tiny inconveniences, Major Detours is a fun, thrilling, adventurous read that deserves to be read as a hardcopy. Having the power to alter the events is always a fun thing to do!

Whitley Gladwell

I enjoyed this journey of a book. Ive always loved a choose your own adventure story and the fact that this centered around tarot made it all the more interesting. I loved the choices and the ending after all the choices are made it gives you character profiles based on the decisions made and it gives you insight on what your decisions meant and what they say about you. I will say i was not connected to any of the characters. They were all really one dementional but I have to say I loved all of the representation and diversity.

Major Detours A Choices Novel

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