'Pretty Little Mistakes' by Heather McElhatton
This 'do-over' novel lets you take a stab at life from the start, as many times as you would like
By Caralyn Green
Published: June 9th, 2007 | 9:14am
If you choose to read this review of Heather McElhatton's debut novel Pretty Little Mistakes
Ridiculous, right? But that's life. One snap decision and your course is altered for, like, ever. That Gwennie chick flick Sliding Doors explored this, I'm pretty sure Lost has explored this at some point or another, and now Minnesota-based public-radio producer and This American Life contributor Heather McElhatton is exploring this in what she bills a "Do-Over Novel," but is actually just a sexed-up Choose Your Own Adventure for the post–middle school, non alien- or time travel–obsessed set.
Pretty Little Mistakes launches in a decidedly predictable fashion with "your" high-school graduation. Do "you" head to college with your longtime sweetie, or blast off on a jet-plane, your passport and grandparents' cash in your back pocket? Each choice and subsequent decision can lead to one of 215 different scenarios, full of regrets, delights, professional successes, and failures, and tons of time between the sheets. One wrong turn and you can end up a murderous, suicidal meth-head. Another, and you're a Midwestern waitress, sagging and alone. Yet another turn, and you're sailing around the world with your soul mate and your duo of adorable pug puppies. Much like in real life, your future — dare I say destiny? — in Pretty Little Mistakes is unpredictable, erratic, and uneven.
McElhatton's writing can be uneven, too. At times, Pretty Little Mistakes is all fluffy and bubbly. You're rendezvousing with a handsome Italian artist! Hurrah! Then suddenly you're being bludgeoned to death in a back alley, and McElhatton's waxing all poetic about the afterlife — "the pink sky sighs, sinks into red, and you relax." These philosophical forays may be the most engaging prose of the novel, but they feel so out of place amidst the succinct, chick lit lite vignettes.
Pretty Little Mistakes is a fun concept, a kitschy one, and don't nobody hate kitsch. But what promises to be an edgy, interactive novel is more of a coffee-table book, a world you'll delve into for a few minutes of escapism, then set aside before frustration takes over. Pretty Little Mistakes works best in small doses. At every narrative bend lurks an annoying, immanent death, and situations in which I swear I'd never entangle myself — most involving illicit sex, drugs, and — horror of all horrors — domesticity. "Dammit Heather McElhatton!" I find myself gasping. "But I don't waaaaaanna move to St. Petersburg with my slobbish hulk of a husband and our eight grandchildren who shine as 'bright as poppies'! How did I get here??" Then I flip back to the beginning. Ah, high school graduation. Art school. That teaching job in New York. That Russian bartender. That slobbish hulking hunk across the hall from that Russian bartender...Shoulda majored in bio.
—
ABOUT THE BOOK
Pretty Little Mistakes: A Do-Over Novel
By Heather McElhatton
List Price: $14.95
512 pages
Issue #35
Comments
Please login to be able to comment on this article.
more