The Escape Artist
Two legends. One day. Thirty ways your life could go. Thirty endings, only four are complete life cycles. Find them all.
“Entertaining escapades bolstered by a bevy of gleefully unpredictable endings.”— Kirkus Reviews
Choose between values, not tactics.
You are Lester Honeycutt of Delaware, Ohio: amateur magician, tightrope walker, and dreamer. You've been practicing your whole life for a moment like this. Today, that moment arrives. Oudini, the greatest escape artist alive, is performing in your town. So is Heinrich, the knife-thrower whose shows leave audiences shaken and volunteers occasionally missing.
Before this weekend is over, you may find yourself on stage with a living legend. You may get yourself arrested. You may catch a knife with your bare hands. You may stow away to Europe, escape a burning building on national television, or walk a tightrope between two of the most famous towers in the world. Or you may go home, help your mom at the library, and live a small, good, quiet life. Which is its own kind of escape.
Most interactive fiction asks you to choose between tactics. The Escape Artist asks you to choose between values. Do you tell Becky the truth? Do you pursue love or fame? Do you make the promise? The choices are emotionally weighted. The consequences play out across decades. Of the 30 endings, only 4 are complete life cycles. Can you find them all?
For readers ages 14–17 who want their choices to mean something, not just now, but for the long haul. Reads strongest at the upper end of that range. Works equally well as a personal read, a creative writing text, or an ethics discussion starter in high school or freshman English.
“Entertaining escapades bolstered by a bevy of gleefully unpredictable endings.”
In Prevost’s YA novel, an aspiring young magician stumbles into adventures that readers can help navigate.
Teenager Lester Honeycutt dreams of being the world’s greatest magician. The novel is structured like a Choose Your Own Adventure book; readers decide the choices that Lester will make. To begin with, should he go see famed escape artist Oudini, who’s performing Saturday in Lester’s town of Delaware? Or should he instead check out illusionist Heinrich, who has a show planned for the very same night? The Heinrich show promises intrigue; rumor has it that volunteers for his knife-throwing bit have been inexplicably disappearing. (“Heinrich does not stop the rumors because he never denies or affirms anything. Heinrich just is.”) When Lester gets the chance to work with these magicians, his narrative branches off in many different directions, sometimes roping in his girlfriend, Becky Carter, or his best friend, Niles Nerling. The book has many developments Lester can’t foresee, including a gang muscling into his business and trouble with a rival magician who copies Lester’s tricks. Prevost deftly showcases the butterfly effect, in which decisions to commit or avoid simple acts spin off into wildly divergent paths. The author smartly incorporates the supporting characters; certain decisions can ruin Lester’s future with Becky or leave Niles fuming. The many storylines rarely stray from the professional goals Lester has his eye on; he tries to prove his skills even when not in front of an audience. The endings are hard to predict, and Lester doesn’t make it in several of them. A few threads, however, don’t quite mesh; in one instance, Lester has been working with one illusionist before he begins to reflect on having worked with the other. Throughout this relatively compact text, Tarter’s artwork enlivens the pages with simple, sketchy black-and-white images that offer such memorable sights as death-defying stunts and Lester’s signature striped pants.
Entertaining escapades bolstered by a bevy of gleefully unpredictable endings.
The book in plain numbers.
UBU Adventure Series.
