Do-over novel asks: What if you won the lottery?

Plenty of Gen-Xers remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books from their childhood. McElhatton updated the format for adults with 2007's "Pretty Little Mistakes."

That novel started with high school graduation and asked if you wanted to go to college or take time off and travel. Given that the story lines run through death (and sometimes the thereafter), it was hard to imagine a follow-up.

But McElhatton rose to the challenge brilliantly, posing the question that most of us have asked ourselves at one time or another: What if I won the lottery?

In "Million Little Mistakes," you start by winning $22 million. The first choice -- do you quit your job or not -- is followed by many of the other questions commonly confronted by real lottery winners: Do you give money to your family? Do you break up with your boyfriend? (You are a woman in "Million Little Mistakes," even if you are a man in real life.)

Depending on the answers to those and subsequent questions, you can end up happily married or brokenhearted, wealthy or just broke. You can kill or be killed. I died numerous unpleasant deaths and, in one case, was reincarnated as an "angry little mushroom" in the overcast Pacific Northwest. It's not the end I really envision for myself.

And that leads to one of the issues with do-over novels: Sometimes, neither of the two choices presented to you reflects the action you might be inclined to take.

One of my co-workers picked up the novel and a few minutes later, she squealed and began worrying aloud about her choices.

"I don't want to end up a prostitute, my dad didn't want me to move to Bangkok because of that," she said at one point.

Her story line ended with her killing her aristocratic boyfriend. She said it wasn't something she thought she would have done in real life.

"He was quite rude to me, but I like to think I would actually come back with some more cutting words, rather than just shoot him," she said. "It's quite fun though."

And, it is fun to make choices and find out whether you end up a wealthy hotelier or slave in the Caribbean. There's not a choice for every plot twist, however. Some sections include rather lengthy action until they get to a turning point where a question is posed.

I had a moment of resistance when I was told that I would buy dozens of useless items while watching home shopping channels on television, given that I spend little time watching TV. But then the plot moved on, and so did I -- to be swindled and die. I should have seen it coming.