One of the first books of its kind, “Night Shift” by Joanna Angel is a Choose-Your-Own Adventure Erotic Fantasy novel. Just think of it as an erotic book with a storyline – a storyline that you get to choose. Published by Cleis Press, this book is 304 pages in length, and it took me a decent amount of time to finish it. (Especially with all of the flipping back and forth). The book is available in a paperback version as well as your standard digital versions.
The official synopsis says:
Taryn Joyner never thought much about sex and never in her wildest dreams imagined that she’d wind up working in an ‘adult’ store for a living. But that’s exactly where she is at 25 years old, starting a night job at Dreamz, Tampa, Florida’s premiere porno shop. Surrounded by dildos, handcuffs, and latex clothes, Taryn isn’t sure what to make of her new surroundings, not to mention the wacky store owner who parades around in lingerie, but then a familiar face walks into the store and her world begins to change…
Now you can guide Taryn through her “sexploration” as she discovers the amazing things that Dreamz, and its customers, have to offer. Will she have a steamy one-night stand with a lesbian toy seller? Will she learn the finer points of vibrator masturbation? Will she teach a tantric sex class? And most importantly, will she learn to open herself to the full realm of possible sexuality? The choice is yours!
I think this book is going to lend itself particularly well to two camps of people: 1) people who have fond memories of choose-your-own adventure books and are now adults and want to experience it in an adult context and 2) people who are looking for an erotic book where they can get attached to the characters but not necessarily actively masturbating to the book while reading.
The first camp of people are going to love this book because it IS a choose-your-own adventure sex book. It’s not quite as thorough as a lot of the books I remember from my childhood, but it still offers those elements. Some of the “Choices” are just “Continue with your adventure or go read what would have happened with the other option”, but some of the choices actually do split the story into two different storylines. I didn’t do any specific counting, but I think the actual “true endings” are between 4 and 6, so there’s a decent amount of ways that your adventure with the main character, Taryn, can happen.
The second camp of people are going to love Night Shift by Joanna Angel because it does provide a decently-good story where you’ll get attached to a character – and get to explore that character’s life with sex and kink as well. This book probably has between 10-15 sex scenes in it, through the book, but as a long book, that does leave a lot of “not-sex” scenes as well. That’s why it’s probably not the best book if you’re looking to open a book, read, and masturbate at the same time. There are great sex scenes, and once you bookmark them, you can come back to read for masturbatory purposes, but due to the story and the downtime between sex scenes, this book seems to work better for enjoying an adult book with nice, erotic sex scenes. Maybe even as foreplay for your later masturbation or just to enjoy a sexual background during your evening.
Another neat aspect of this book is the variety of kink and sex. It isn’t just like “oh, they have vanilla sex and once in awhile throw in some bondage – so kinky!”. Oh no. The main character, Taryn, works in a sex shop, and the book takes every opportunity possible to throw in kinks that could be satiated by the items that the main character sells. There is a storyline with crossdressing, a storyline with domination and lesbian sex, a storyline with swingers, a storyline with a porn star performance (Joanna Angel herself!), a storyline with a guy who’s hoping to grow his penis size, and others. Expect a lot, a lot of group sex as well – in addition to a decent amount of voyeurism. About the only thing that was missing was any male-on-male contact.
While a small annoyance, I was surprised to find that some of the “Turn to X Page” were actually inaccurate and off by a few pages. It looks like some of the spacing likely changed some of the actual, printed numbers of the pages, which threw off the written numbers in the book. It’s only been off by one or two pages, though, so it’s quickly easy to figure out where the book meant to send you. I hope Cleis Press solves that in subsequent print runs, though.
My only other complaint is the number of exclamation points the author likes to use. It’s an excessive amount. I’m actually surprised the editor didn’t cut or change most of them during editing. It doesn’t affect the reading flow much, but the exclamation points definitely stand out as way more than an average book.
Despite those two complaints, though, I’m still really fond of Night Shift. Regardless of its Choose-Your-Own Adventure status, it’s actually decently well-written, and I enjoyed the adventure of the main character. Once you include the Choose-Your-Own Adventure aspect, it seems like an even-better book – just because Joanna Angel managed to find a decent amount of ways to “split” the story in ways that seemed lifelike, completely fit into the character’s personality, and were noticeably unique compared to what I was expecting. I feel like I was surprised by the turn of the story on a regular basis – and that’s a good thing! No ridiculously-stereotypical storylines on this one.
On a similar topic, I was pretty fond of the personality of the main character, Taryn as well. She wasn’t an air-headed woman after sex all the time. Yes, she occasionally looked around the store and had some arousing thoughts about the toys around the place, but for the most part, she was driven. She was also easily excitable, but during multiple storylines, she showed her dedication and growth towards better sex and a better sex store. In addition to that, she had a realistic viewpoint towards sex and sexuality. It sometimes came off closer to “sarcastic”, but it was a really refreshing viewpoint on things.
For example, some of my favorite quotes that had me smiling and dedicated to finishing this book included:
“I’m not sure if Jimmy realized what was happening here. His eyes were closed– and I had no idea why. If ever in my lifetime get the opportunity to have sex with more than one person at a time— or hell, more than one person in a week–I would for sure keep my eyes open and savor every last moment, and I would try to get enough stimulation to try to put some away on reserve in that part of my brain that I use when I’m alone with my shower head. “
“The unicorn girl fussed with the TV remote. Apparently, she was assigned to pick which porn they were going to watch, but I don’t think she realized that this was not a multiple choice option. There was only one porn cued up to play — the remote’s only purpose was for volume and turning the TV on and off –but the unicorn kept flipping through the non-existent channels. I could see her getting frustrated. She was far too drunk to be deemed the IT department of the orgy.”
Overall, I’d highly recommend Night Shift: A Choose-Your-Own Erotic Fantasy by Joanna Angel. This book is going to best appeal to those who love a story and some attachment to the characters – but also want some real, kinky, well-written sex. The sex isn’t 24/7 in the book, but there’s enough sex to make the reading erotic. Thanks to Cleis Press for providing a copy of this book for my Night Shift by Joanna Angel review.
