All This and More is a very original idea. A contestant goes onto a game show and through quantum physics can try any version of their life that they want. Marsh is a divorced mom of a teenager who works in a law firm. She meets an old flame and begins to date again, only to make a mistake that ends that relationship too. Could she change her life and become the lawyer she has always wanted to be? Could she rekindle her relationships with her ex husband or new boyfriend? Could she become a better mom or travel the world? This show allows Marsh to make simple changes to see how her life would have played out if only she had made different choices.

The style of this book was like an old choose your own adventure novel. I loved those as a kid, and I think I would have appreciated this story more if I had a physical copy versus reading a kindle version. On the kindle version I couldn't easily flip back and forth if I wanted to change my scenario, so I'm not sure what all I missed. I feel like the book was long and maybe that was the result of the choices I had made, but felt a bit repetitive in parts and I never really got an answer to what was going on in the "bubble" of the show.

The Cartographers was one of my favorite books of 2022. Unfortunately, All This and More didn't capture my attention in the same way. I liked the style and premise, just wanted it to feel less repetitive.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for granting me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

I loved The Cartographers so I could not wait to read this book. Marsh is unhappy with her family life, work-life, and love life. When she is chosen to be the star of a TV show called "All This and More" she jumps at the chance. The show uses brand-new quantum technology to allow Marsh to change the mistakes of her past. She can choose until she has her perfect life.

The catch? The reader gets to decide what she does next. What seems like a really cool game show is actually a lot more. When weird glitches start appearing, Marsh is not sure if she is imagining them or if there is something wrong.

This is a choose-your-own-adventure for adults and it is amazing! Don't worry, you will not have to start again repeatedly. There are strategic spots where you will choose. I think this book is absolutely brilliantly executed. The story is non-stop and the ending is perfect.

Peng Shepherd is easily becoming a go to author for me! I was blown away with The Cartographers and I was super excited to see a new book from her. I'll admit though, I wasn't completely sold on the idea of the chose-your-own-path format, but I wanted to give it a chance because I loved her previous book so much. I was thankfully surprised!

As soon as I started reading, I was immediately reminded of why I loved The Cartographers so much. She just has such a beautiful way of telling a story that keeps me coming back for more. Getting into the story, the plot was really there. I thought it would be this story about a woman changing her life through a tv show. I was completely thrown off in the best way when the tv show started going off the rails! I loved the twist with the plot!

As far as the chose-your-own-path format goes, I enjoyed it more than I thought. She does say that if you would prefer to read it the way the author intended, pick the path on the left. That made it easier, because I just picked that one if I wasn't sure what to do. It ended up being pretty cool. I know there were some paths I didn't take, so the next time I read the book, it will be completely different.

My only hang up was the ending. I really wasn't sure how to feel about it. I did go back and read all 3 options for endings and none of them really did it for me. It just wasn't how I would have liked the story to wrap up and left me feeling a little let down. It was shaping up to be a 5 star read until the very end.

All in all, after that ending (or should I say endings), I ended up giving this one 4.5 stars (4 stars rounded for netgalley/goodreads).

TLDR: Ya’ll know how much I love (LOVE!!) Peng Shepherd’s THE BOOK OF M, one of the craziest, coolest, most unique books I’ve ever read (a post-apocalyptic love story with one of the wildest endings ever); well, Shepherd is back, and she’s hitting us 90s kids with all the nostalgia in her latest, ALL THIS AND MORE, an inventive new novel that happens to be an adult “choose your own adventure” story about a woman who gets a second chance at all the biggest moments in her life, and you -the reader- get to decide how she goes about doing that. Together, we get to help her find her own elusive “happily ever after”, and oh man, am I so excited that this our pick this month! Even cooler, this is such a fun book club pick, because there are actually 3 different endings, so every reader could potentially read a different book, leading to some very fun and unique discussions.

If you had the chance to change your life to make it exactly the way you want it, would you?
This is a fun, fast moving book about life choices.

If you’ve wondered what your life could be had you chosen a different path, love choose-you-own-adventure stories, or enjoy trying every possible path in video games, ALL will be a fantastic experience! I’m blown away by how intricate various choices lead to—sometimes the same ending and other times vastly different. Since ALL is more about the experience of choices, each character’s backstory isn’t the main focus. As readers jump from one parallel universe to another, world-building or character development isn’t always straightforward. I recommend ALL to readers who enjoy THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY (Matt Haig).

Peng Shepherd is one of the best writers in the realm of Science Fiction. I have devoured all of her previous works. Once again she has written a truly innovative book. In someone else’s hands this choose your way process could have felt gimmicky but it works perfectly for this story.

Peng Shepherd has created a nuanced speculative novel where a divorced single mom gets a chance for a do-over on a this could br your life reality TV show. Unlike most books, you, the reader, have a say in what happens, by a unique mechanism reminiscent of the CYOA books of your childhood. Unlike reality TV, the choices March makes will stick after the show ends.

It's part mystery, part SciFi, part love story. Marsh makes mistakes. You can choose pathways that aren't fulfilling. And both you and Marsh can go back and try again.

I loved it. I, of course, read through every pathway!

Thank you to the publisher for a copy.

I really enjoyed this one! I thought reading it in the kindle was super easy bc when you made a choice you could easily flip back to change it.

The premise of the dif storylines was fun and when it all came together, I really was happy with it.

Very creative and really fun!

Imagine an adult choose your own adventure book set inside a reality bending reality show… this is that story! I read it straight through without making choices that would destroy the linear path, but I hope to make time to read it with different choices because I really enjoyed the funky setting and hilarious characters!

I have loved everything that I have read by Peng Shepherd. This is another hit for me. The style reminds me of Choose Your Own Adventure books. The reader can read to a certain point and then select which direction to take the story. This style of writing is fun as a reader because you can follow the story in one way and then reread (or now read) the other choices to see a different version of the story. Highly engaging and would strongly recommend, I would say that I have gotten the physical book for this as well and feel like it is an easier way to follow the story (or go to alternate plot lines) than with an ebook. Either way....go for it!
#AllThisandMore #NetGalley #WilliamMorrow

Once I read the synopsis for this book, I was very intrigued! I did feel very engaged from the start and found the premise very interesting.

This book is set up like a choose your own adventure but somehow I missed that I was actually supposed to be picking throughout so I just kept reading it like any normal book. I did finally figure this out about 75% in and think it probably would have been more interesting if I had actually made choices along the way. It did seem to drag about halfway but that was probably because I was reading everything.

Overall, I thought this was a fun book and it definitely kept me guessing as to what was going to happen. It was fun to read the different endings but I didn’t feel like it had as much resolution as a typical book did. I would recommend it but don’t know that this would work in audio.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc

okayyyyyyy. not truly a choose your own adventure book in the traditional early reader chapter book sense, more an exploration of self and existential place. but i liked this. it's peng shepherd's bread and butter, especially coming from someone who liked the cartographers more than most

DNF at 20%

I'm unfortunately very bored by this. It's very repetitive and I do not care about Marsh's life. It's too long to be a fun choose-your-own-adventure type of book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

All This & More by Peng Shepherd is one of the most unique books I have ever read, and while I KNOW it won't be for everyone, it blew me away! I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was younger, and this was a more adult and complex take on that. I did not love Marsh all the time, but I could certainly understand the draw to make your life absolutely perfect. Instead of jumping around the way I would have in a CYOA book, I decided to read straight through since I was listening to the audiobook. This did get repetitive at the end and a little weird, but I still loved it.

The audio is narrated by Helen Laser, and I thought she did an excellent job! She certainly made me connect to Marsh more as a character, and she was also just really easy and fun to listen to. Due to the format, I would definitely have a copy of the physical book as well, and during the card portion, there were actually pictures of the cards in the book which I thought was really cool. I don't know how it would work, but I think All This & More would be awesome to see on TV too, especially as something like a series. This would make an excellent book club choice and I think it would garner lots of discussion. Shepherd made an instant fan in me with such a clever and unique novel!

Peng Shepherd’s ALL THIS & MORE (thanks for the gifted book!) took me back to my childhood when I voraciously read through all of R.L. Stine’s choose-your-own-adventure Goosebumps books. There was something thrilling about directing the course of a book as a reader. About taking the lives of fictional others into your own hands. But what if those people were real? What if the decisions you made impacted the actual fate of everyone around you?

ALL THIS & MORE takes an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure structure for the reader—but also for its main character, middle-aged Marsh, who is lucky enough to be chosen as the season 3 star for the hit reality TV show, All This & More. On the show, contestants are literally given the chance to explore all the what-if’s, all the different paths they didn’t take, and live them out…until that find that perfect, happy ending. Marsh has regrets, and she’s determined to use this chance to make it all right. But when the technology powering the show begins to glitch, and strange coincidences begin to follow her through her alternate paths, she begins to realize that there are secrets to the show that might keep her from her perfect ending—and that the choices she’s making might not even be her own choices at all.

I absolutely devoured this book. There’s many ways to read it, but I ended up plowing straight through until I was forced to skip pages and choose…and then I went and read all of the alternate paths 😂 While ALL THIS & MORE does carry a big message at its end (after all, what is a “perfect” life with no regrets, anyways?), this read for me more as a fast-paced and light-hearted book than a drop-everything-existentialist sci-fi. Carrying Shepherd’s signature plot twists and addictive pacing, I would recommend this for anyone looking for a fun summer read 🔅

All This & More has an amazing premise and I was immediately drawn in by the opening pages. What if you could go back and make different choices and see how your life would play out - over and over again? I also loved the idea of an adult Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Unfortunately, the execution fell a little flat for me. There were so many places the story could have gone and maybe I preferred my own imagined options than the ones offered by the author. I read all the possible endings and found myself equally unsatisfied by all - and while maybe that’s the point, it definitely isn’t what I had hoped for. Thank you to the publisher for the free book to review.

Short synopsis: Marsh is chosen as season three contestant on a reality TV show dedicated to creating the perfect life based on her choices.

My thoughts: This book is equal parts genius, and stressful. It’s an adult “choose your own adventure” book where you make choices for the main character in propelling her story forward. I haven’t read a book like this since i was kid, and man was it a wild ride! I have the hardest time making difficult decisions for myself, so making choices for Marsh had me feeling so anxious!

Marsh was such a great main character. She starts out as very timid and nervous to be in the spotlight, but throughout the book she really grows to find her true (or what i chose for her) happiness. This is one that I will be thinking about for a long time to come, highly recommend!

Read if you love:
- Making decisions
- Being stressed out
- Reality TV
- Living your best life
- Character growth

Thank you William Morrow, #partner, for the finished copy of All This & More in exchange for my honest review.

No one is more shocked than me that I loved this book! It’s so different than what I tend to gravitate towards…but the author’s last book, The Cartographers, was one of my favorite books from last year, so I had to read this one. And let me just say, this new one will be a favorite this year! ⁣
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This is such a smart, thought-provoking book & I loved the interactive part! Yes, this is an adult “Choose Your Own Adventure” type read as I read & made choices for our main character, it definitely had me reflecting on what I would have done had I been in her position. But not only that, it also begs the question…if you could go back & change decisions in your life for better, would you? ⁣
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I tabbed quite a bit as I was reading because so much spoke to me in this book. And I have a feeling that with each new reread – of course I have to read it again to explore all the paths I didn’t make the first time around, I’ll be tabbing even more! ⁣
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I had the opportunity to go to one of Peng Shepherd s book events & it was so fun! She did an interactive reading that I took part in! But more importantly, I just loved hearing about how & why she decided to write this book. ⁣

This book is one of the most unique, fun books I’ve read in a while & I highly recommend it!!!

The choose your own adventure style of this book was really a unique way to present this sliding door story. I don’t usually like sliding door stories but liked this better because of the quantum physics aspect of the novel.

I loved how the story started and I really liked choosing the ending (although I did read through all 3 endings to see what I missed in my chosen ending). The middle got a little chaotic and that part was harder for me to read. However, overall, I had a hard time putting this book down because I really wanted to know where Marsh’s life was heading and what was really going on in the bubble.