All This and More by Peng Shepherd is hard for me to review. Overall, I really liked this book. Shepherd has a unique writing style and it works really well in this book. This is a choose your own adventure book, which I’m not sure I’ve ever read before. I read an ARC and I can’t wait to see the physical book to see how this is laid out!
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I was pulled into this story right away and stayed up too late two nights in a row to get to the finish as quickly as I could. The author had me gasping with surprise numerous times and really in suspense as to how she would land this. Being this type of story, there are alternative endings. I like the one I chose best and, of course, I went back and read them all. To my astonishment, this is science fiction! I guess since it has “quantum bubbling” I should not be surprised! It’s also a bit fantasy or magical realism. Not my normal wheel house!
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What is difficult for me, is that most my followers will definitely not want to read a particular scene in the book. Because it’s this style of book, you don’t have to. In the beginning it says “At certain points in the text, the story will present you with several options about what to do next. You can either allow the book to guide you along like a more conventional novel, or you can forge your own path”
If when you get to a point in the story where you are concerned that her choice is going to be something you do not want to read, this is the one time when you’ll for sure want to take the alternative path. If you do that, you will be fine (as far as I could tell, and I think I read all the paths).
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In spite of that scene, I gave this book 4 stars. I think it earned them! Thank you to @netgalley and @WilliamMorrow for the ARC that I received through @ThoughtsFromAPage podcast. I am very much looking forward to talking about this book with the author!

"All This & More" is an inventive and wholly original novel about a woman who wins the chance to rewrite every mistake she’s ever made. Marsh, a 45-year-old whose life is in shambles, gets selected to star in a reality show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants to revise their pasts and change their present lives.

Marsh's journey is filled with twists as she becomes a famous lawyer, rekindles an old romance, and travels the world. However, as she navigates these new paths, she begins to notice unsettling inconsistencies and wonders if the show's promises are too good to be true.

The book is structured like a "Choose Your Own Adventure," which adds a super fun layer to the reading experience. As Marsh explores different realities, the story explores themes of choice, consequence, and the pursuit of happiness.

While the premise is really cool, the execution felt a bit lengthy at times. The story could have been tighter, and some parts seemed to drag. However, the concept is so intriguing that it keeps you hooked. The unique format allows readers to feel more involved in the narrative, making it a fun and thought-provoking read.

Overall, "All This & More" is a creative and captivating novel that stands out for its originality. It might not have been the exact book I was expecting, but it’s still a compelling read that offers plenty to think about.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC.

All This and More is such an utterly unique book that I'm truthfully struggling with putting my thoughts together for this review. I read more than 100 books each year and can honestly admit that I've never read anything quite like it. You've seen it compared to the Choose Your Own Adventure books that adults of a certain age enjoyed as children, and that's the quickest way to describe the function of this book. The plot lives in the center of the Venn Diagram of science fiction, romance, reality television, and chaos theory. In other words, I'm grateful to not be employed as a book seller so I don't have to figure out where to shelve this book.

The concept is creative, engaging, and fascinating. The execution, though, is a bit chaotic and I had to actively decide that I wasn't going to understand any of the "how" in this book and just let the plot sweep me along. I read this digitally and that appears to be the perfect medium for this book as you can literally click to the next section when it's time to choose your path forward. I initially chose to read straight through (opting for the "turn the page" option for the first few choices) but did end up getting more adventurous and steering Marsh onto different paths as the story unfolded. Before I called the book complete, I went back to make different choices in order to feel like I had fully consumed Shepherd's vision. I am blown away by the creativity and attention to detail that it must have taken to create this book!

Is your life perfect? Are you (and the other people in your life) living up to your maximum potential? Should you even want to be? I'll be thinking about this book for quite some time. It kept me engaged and seriously considering what I would do each time Marsh was presented with a choice to make. We are very different people with very different goals and dreams, so parts of this book were frustrating, but it was fun to be able to turn the story in a different direction (unlike so many other fiction books with frustrating main characters where all you can do about it is shout at the clouds). I enjoyed this book, but I can see where it will not be for every reader. At times the chaos in the middle of the book made me think, "enough! let's move on!" but in this singular instance I can say I have no one to blame but myself.

Thank you to NetGalley, William Morrow, and Peng Shepherd for inviting me along on this unique adventure. It was so fun to play along!

Big thanks to @netgalley, @williammorrowbooks, and the author for the gifted eARC!

The description of this book immediately intrigued me. A choose your own adventure book for adults?! Count me in! And it really is. First, we are taken through an entrancing summary of the FMC’s life. Marsh is so relatable: a middle-aged woman who feels like her life passed her by as she settled for a mediocre existence instead of taking chances. Don’t we all have a “what if?” hidden in the back of our minds? What if you could go back and take that chance? We are presented with multiple points where we, as readers, can choose which path Marsh should go down. The suspense at the end of each chapter had me so captivated that I physically couldn’t put this down!

Then, about midway through, I hit a snag. I was reading a new chapter that I had been instructed to jump to, and wasn’t given a choice at the end. This isn’t abnormal, but then I was led through 2 chapters I had already read, which culminated in the same choices I had been given previously. So, I picked a different one, and then the book just went on… it was extremely confusing. Why was I made to reread two full chapters that I had already read? Was the storyline I had chosen supposed to have ended, and I accidentally just kept reading? Did I do something wrong at some point? I backtracked a few times and couldn’t find any place where I hadn’t followed the ebook’s instructions.

After that confusing debacle, I lost a lot of motivation to continue because I found the book to be longer than it needed to be. It started to lose its fun for me, and I was happy to reach the book’s suspenseful conclusion.

Overall, this is SUCH an ambitious novel and I cannot remember the last time I was so engrossed in a storyline. Choose your own adventure books were like the holy grail to us 90’s kids, so this was so nostalgic and just plain fun! Shepherd’s writing is beautiful, and I wish I was able to quote it, but could not due to it being an advanced reader digital copy. I want to stress that since I did read an ARC of this book, the issue I ran into midway through (and the reason for my overall rating) might not even be in the finished version. Or, it very well may have been user error on my part.

I’m so excited to read more by Peng Shepherd, and give many thanks to her for giving this 90’s kid an awesome choose your own adventure read experience!

A choose your own adventure book for grown ups! Marsh is middle-aged and doesn't feel great about her life--nothing seems to be going her way. But her luck may be changing when she's selected as a contestant in a hit game show that allows people to go back and change their pasts.

The cool thing about this book is that the reader can choose different paths for Marsh by selecting which chapter to read next. Or if that seems too weird or too much work, you can just read straight through.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book and it made for a very enjoyable read. But more than that, it made me think not only about how our choices impact the rest of our lives but about what really makes us happy--it's often not what we think. And even though Marsh seemed to have everything she wanted, she couldn't help but keep tweaking things to make them "more perfect."

Really enjoyed this latest book by Peng Shepherd and can't wait to see what wild ideas she comes up with next!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for a copy in exchange for an honest review! This comes out July 9!

When I learned about All This and More, I was intrigued by the premise. Using physics to create a time bubble where the user can create their perfect life was intriguing, and I wanted to see how the story would progress. What I didn't realize was that I was in control. This is a choose-your-own-adventure novel, reminiscent of the books I would check out ad nauseam from the library as a kid. There is an option to just read the story as you would a normal book (in a linear format), or to just go and choose your path. I did both. To be fair, the first choice I made brought me to the end of the book, so rather than finish a story in about 15 minutes I chose to go back to the beginning and read the book for as long as I could before I had to make another choice. It was cool to see the different pathways the reader could take, and I thought it added novelty to the reading experience.

As for the story itself, I thought it was compelling. There is a slight thriller aspect, as the main character Marsh realizes that something is amiss as she moves through the quantum bubble to get "all this and more". The story definitely had an uncanny valley feeling that left me with a bit of a chill on the back of my neck. Since some of the scenes did repeat depending on the choices made, some of the text was reused but I just skipped past those sections. Overall, this is a very solid story and I thought the format was unique. The story itself was definitely suited for the choose-your-own-adventure format, and I give Shepherd props for coming up with such an intricate story.

All This And More is a fresh and fun take on time travel: it’s a choose-your-own adventure book. It’s twisty and unpredictable since you get to drive the plot by making the main character’s choices. I found it very amusing that I often had no sense for how far along into the book I was, as I jumped in all directions from chapter to chapter. All This And More is set on a reality TV show that promises to help its star achieve the perfect life and find happiness. The book asks, are they one and the same? The main character travels through time, corrects mistakes and explores the “what ifs” of their life, the paths not taken.

This book exceeds 500 pages and yet I flew through it in two days. Things are great and go wrong and turn dangerous and it’s exciting. It takes us across the globe to stunning settings. This was truly such a fun, adventure of a book.

4.5⭐️ rounded up to 5!

All This And More will be out 7/9. Thank you William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC.

If you could rewrite certain moments in your life, would you? In “All This and More”, Peng Shepherd writes several different paths for Marsh, the main character, to take but it’s you, the reader who chooses. It’s Black Mirror vs Reality television. Far too many over the top scenes and catching up to the new reality moments occur. Comments from the show pop up every so often. As if there isn’t a lot going on already, there’s a mystery thrown into the mix as well.
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I found it hard to root for or to even care about Marsh. The only time I went back to find out what happens to Marsh in the different paths/choices was at the end of the book. Utilizing quantum physics and a choose your own adventure in speculative fiction, I give the author credit. ARC was provided by William Morrow via NetGalley. I received an advance review copy and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

(4.5 stars) Many thanks to William Morrow Books for a #gifted print copy of this bold and wildly creative book! Below is my honest review.

What would your life have been like if you’d made different choices? When Marsh becomes the season three contestant on All This & More, the groundbreaking and wildly popular reality TV show, that’s what she intends to find out. This unique concept, based on advances in quantum physics, allows a person to make different life choices in a controlled environment and see if they improve their life. Throughout a season, contestants make choices to improve their lives, and their final choice is seamlessly slotted back into reality. The first season was a global phenomenon, but season two was mysteriously shut down and never aired. Now they are back with season three, and Marsh gets to see what her life would look like if she had put herself first. From obvious what-ifs to radical life changes, Marsh examines happiness from many angles in her quest for the perfect life.

This book requires active reader participation as it is a grown-up choose-your-own-adventure book. Shepard poses choices after many chapters where you must decide how to advance in reading based on what choice you want Marsh to make. You can read along in page order for a while, but you will ultimately have to choose how you experience the book. This interactive element makes you feel an extra investment in Marsh’s journey. The whole book looks at what defines the perfect life - and how individual readers choose to direct Marsh’s choices ultimately will be based on how they define happiness and want that realized for Marsh. Your decisions will shape Marsh's journey, making this an interactive and engaging reading experience. I kept reading this book and thinking about whether happiness is found in the perfection or messiness of life. It is a deeply engrossing read that will keep you thinking long after you finish.

This book is an adult Choose Your Own Adventure novel, and as such I’ve been excited to read it ever since I heard about it. It’s been a loooong time since I’ve read a CYOA, but they were always a favorite at the Scholastic Book Fair or to borrow out of the Bookmobile more years ago than I care to think about.

I’ll start with the premise of the book. Marsh’s life is in a rut. She’s middle-aged, divorced, in a dead-end job, and wondering where it all went wrong and what happened to the hopes and dreams she had when she was younger. After Ren, her first real post-divorce boyfriend (an old high school boyfriend she reconnected with after not seeing or speaking to him in decades) breaks up with her, she decides to apply to be the star of season 3 of the reality television show All This and More. Thanks to quantum technobabble, the star of the show gets to explore how their life might be different if they had done things differently. What if they’d asked that person out? What if they’d chosen a different major, or a different college? Studied abroad? Stood up to that bully? They spend a season exploring possibilities, and at the end their perfect life is re-integrated into reality and they get to live their happily ever after.

This setup obviously lends itself well to a CYOA book. We the reader get to make a lot of the decisions Marsh faces in the show. Marsh’s first choice, for example, is between going back and choosing to not drop out of law school when her daughter was born, or going back to the night before Ren broke up with her and making sure that doesn’t happen. A major change that will alter the trajectory of her entire adult life, or a recent tweak to adjust things going forwards?

The choices in the CYOA books of old came fast and furious. Not the case here - I had to make fewer than 10 decisions over the course of the book. And the author tells you that if you don’t want to make a choice and just read the book as a normal novel, the first choice is always the “default.” I consciously avoided what I used to do with CYOAs, which was jump around, backtrack, or sometimes even flip through, find an ending I liked, and then backtrace and figure out how to get there, with two exceptions. At one point I caught that a choice was going to send me back to a section I’d already read; rather than loop, I went back and went the other way. And for the final choice in the book (where you’re given three options, not two, and the author says there is no default) I read all three.

The structure of a CYOA book in an adult novel works fairly well, though not perfectly. Different sections can be read in different places, and need to be able to fit together whatever order the reader encounters them. This mostly works very well, which is a credit to the author, but there were a few places the seams were showing. And there were a number of places I felt rushed, or the story felt undeveloped, which was clearly a consequence of trying to fit multiple books (essentially) into one. But on the whole I think the author did a great job.

What about the story itself? This part of the review will purely reflect my experience of reading the book. Obviously if you make different choices than I did, your experience will be different, and I’m not planning to re-read and explore different paths.

I myself am 40. I don’t particularly want to re-do my life, but I think everyone has their “what if?” imaginings. So I related to Marsh quite a lot, and there was definitely a lot of projection and stress when making these choices. Way too easy for me to imagine the choices I would be given if I were the star of All This and More. Made even worse since the first few choices, at least for me, led to pure misery porn as every decision Marsh made ended in disaster of one sort or another.

Luckily things turned around and the book became both fun and exciting as Marsh goes from paralegal to high-powered lawyer to wildlife photographer to actress to knife-throwing super secret agent. But there’s also things that keep getting stranger as the season goes on. She keeps seeing Ren again and again, in situations where it makes no sense. She keeps seeing other things repeating beyond what can be coincidence. By the end, this had gone from misery porn to exciting thriller I couldn’t put down.

All that being said: I’ve previously read Peng Shepherd’s The Cartographers, and my review of that book could be summed up as “this doesn’t make sense but I love it anyway.” There’s something similar going on here, where the science fiction simply doesn’t make sense in ways Shepherd avoids addressing. Which is fair enough; science fiction doesn’t have to make sense if you’re able to gloss over it effectively (see the “Heisenberg compensator” from Star Trek).But there were a few issues that kind of stuck on me and were niggling at me the entire book. The main one was that All This and More is supposed to be one of the greatest television phenomena of all time; how does that square with the star of the season re-integrating their “perfect” life in at the end? How do their kids feel about it? Their significant others and colleagues?

The other thing that bothered me has to do with sex and consent. There’s nothing like rape or assault in this book; it’s never even hinted at. But Marsh obviously encounters other people in the different iterations of her lives, and sometimes she has sex with them. Sometimes it’s her ex-husband, or Ren, which, fine. But it was hard to keep my brain from going other, darker places. The people in the different realities with Marsh are often people she knows from her “real” life. Imagine if someone you know was the contestant, and you’re watching an episode where they hook up with your alternate reality self? How does that work? Questions of consent here are very murky. Shepherd sidesteps the issue entirely, which is fine, but it also kept niggling at me.

But those complaints aside, this was fun both as a book and as an experience. A Choose Your Own Adventure isn’t something I would want to read all the time, but it was fun to experience the format in a serious adult novel.

DNF. the story was super interesting and i’ve enjoyed the author’s previous books, but something was off with this one. The story idea was obviously unique, but it felt very heavy handed with foreshadowing and spoon feeding information.

All This and More by Peng Shepherd is a very highly recommended unique version of a Choose Your Own Adventure story, only this time it is to choose, or rather revise, your life.

Marsh has just turned forty-five and feels as if she has missed her chance at fulfillment in every area of her life. She can't believe it when she is selected to be a contestant on season 3 of the show All This and More. The show uses quantum technology, a time bubble, to allow contestants the chance to revise their pasts and change their present lives. This is Marsh's chance to seize her chance to get it all right and have the life she always wanted. As she tries on being successful in different occupations Marsh begins to realize that something is not quite right with All This and More.

This is a very creative, imaginative novel and the writing is incredible, characteristics I expect from any novel Peng Shepherd writes. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I am good with the reality TV show plot mixed with science fiction. My only hesitation is the Choose Your Own Adventure aspect. My kids were fans of these kind of novels years ago, however I never grew up with them so the idea has no nostalgia for me. The plot had to stand on what I choose.

The different realities Marsh encounters were well done and the glitches she begins to notice are seamlessly incorporated into the various narrative choices. I liked the science fiction aspect to the narrative, the idea of jumps to different realities is clever, but maybe not so much the choose what to do next while reading.

Admittedly, I did choose what I sincerely wanted to see next, so my experience was a mix of the two options. It might be interesting to read it straight through without choices to see if it changes my feelings. 4.5 rounded up. Thanks to William Morrow for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, X, BookBrowse, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

All This and More by Peng Shepherd ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Why I Chose It: I was hooked with the idea of a quantum technology reality show.

I enjoyed the actual reading experience of this much more than the storyline. I was completely blown away at the skill and effort this adult “choose your own adventure” story showcased. As an anxious reader (I didn’t want to miss anything), I was resolved to just read it straight through (you can mostly do this), but as I got into the experience, the fact that I had choices enticed me. So I selected options that jumped me around, and I enjoyed it.

As for storyline itself, it wasn’t my favorite. It was a little hard to wrap my head around the topic and how it was working. I never really connected with the characters, nor did I feel like I got to know them. It was also too long. I got bogged down with the details on several occasions, so it didn’t keep me as engaged as I would’ve liked.

With all that said, this was a read that every single reader will have a different experience depending on the choices they make. I found that incredible, and for experience alone, readers should try it.

Fans of ‘choose your own adventure’ stories, science-y reads, and the butterfly effect will really enjoy this one.

While Peng Shepherd has yet to surprise me with a plot twist, this is a much more fun and entertaining book than The Cartographers. And it really is a choose your own adventure, where you can skip around exploring different angles of the story. It's complete with three possible endings, each a little more jarringly meta than the next.

If you liked the idea of The Midnight Library but felt its approach was too simple or saccharine, this is exactly the book for you.

All This & More is an absolute triumph of form and content working together. This adult Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story is riveting tale of alternate realities, and the consequences of making different choices. Marsh is a middle-aged recent divorcee who has just been laid off from her paralegal job. In this ultimate slump, she decides to submit an application to the wildly popular All This & More reality TV show. The show uses "quantum bubbling" to allow its contestant to travel through their life and make different choices - e.g. staying in law school instead of dropping out to be a stay-at-home mom, going back to school after her daughter is a little older, choosing a completely different career path. When the show is over, the bubble will slip right back into our reality and become Marsh's new life. But from the very first choice, All This & More turns out be much more than Marsh bargained for.

It is hard to discuss any more plot without spoilers, but what Shepherd gets so right is how absolutely off the rails Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories go. Marsh's season becomes embroiled with the mysteries season 2 of All This & More, which was never aired and resulted in its parent company going under. As Marsh's life plays out and the secrets of All This & More come to light, Marsh's realities spiral farther and farther from the life she knew, and the life she thought she wanted.

I read through the story a few times to try out as many different paths as I could, and I was very impressed by the way each path is so incredibly different but manages to meet at similar lynch-pin events. The skill, time, and imagination it took to create this novel is so impressive. As my second Shepherd book, and second which gripped me from beginning to end, I will absolutely be going back to read The Book of M and easily putting Shepherd on my auto-buy list for the future.

US pub date: 7/9/24
Genre: science fiction/magical realism
Quick summary: Timid Marsh gets the chance of a lifetime - a reality show bubble in which to correct all her mistakes and find the life she deserves...and more. But as the days get better and better, a mysterious stranger's warnings and her own misgivings begin to mount.

This book completely captured my attention! It was the perfect match for a day spent on planes, and I was so grateful I had the time to read it without having other responsibilities. I really loved Marsh as a protagonist - she was kind and loving but needed a push to stand up for herself. I liked how Shepherd slowly introduced the cracks in Marsh's "perfect world", and the second half totally surprised me and kept me hooked.

This book is structured like a "choose your own adventure", and the reader can opt for different paths through Marsh's story. I followed the linear path and really enjoyed it. But if you're adventurous, you might enjoy taking Marsh's fate into your own hands! 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

Thank you to @thoughtsfromapage podcast and William Morrow for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, All This and More was a very interesting novel with a premise that immediately captured my intrigue. However, I often found myself trying to get the novel over with and frequently lost interest leading up to the climax. This story and the Choose Your Own Adventure structure will do better as a limited TV series.

This is a tricky book to read in e-format, be it e-book or e-audio. With its "Choose Your Own, or rather Marsh's Adventure" layout, it's better suited to traditional print where one could easily flip back and forth between chapters. This is doable but messier via ebook and even more complicated with eaudio, which happens to be my default choice. I liked the premise of the book but know that I grew frustrated with its length because I couldn't skip around as easily as someone who will read it in print. Maybe there are just some books that due to their layout should NOT be released as egalleys? I think I'd've been less distracted and able to enjoy the book's story more if I'd been reading it traditionally.

Thank you @williammorrowbooks #partner for the gifted eARC and copy of this book!

In this story, we follow Marsh who seems to be going through the motions in her life. She’s not loving her job, her marriage is ending and her and her daughter’s relationship seems to become more strained and disconnected as each day passes. When she is selected to be a part of the show “All This and More” she becomes excited at the thought of correcting all her her life’s choices that have placed her in the spot she’s in now. The show uses quantum physics to basically allow the contestant to “relive” and “revise” their choices they’ve made in the past. Kind of like a choose your own adventure! Marsh gets to try on all new choices and paths to see where she lands. Will any of her decisions lead her to the happiness she wants? Does she really get to have “All This and More?” Seems like a great idea…until she realizes maybe there isn’t something quite right with these life choices.

I absolutely loved Cartographers and saw this was also compared to Midnight Library and that’s all I needed! One thing that is guaranteed when you pick up a Peng Shepherd book is you’re going to get a unique and one of a kind story! I am always impressed and amazed reading when an author can come up with an idea that is fresh, rare and remarkable! Peng delivers that and more. This book is a bit futuristic (which I love), made me reminiscent of choose your own adventure books, and mind bending. It was the perfect book to change things up and I simply captivated by the delightful journey this one took me on. Bravo Peng! I can’t wait to read what you come up with next!

This book grabbed me immediately and I loved it. Marsh is a great characters and the story was unique and interesting. I enjoyed the chose your own adventure style as well. Couldn't put it down!!