A young girl who recently moved to San Fransisco from Ohio with her mother and brother finds a mood ring that magically transports her back in time to 1975 where she meets Julie Albright. Your choices move the story along. A Brighter Tomorrow: My Journey with Julie American Girl Beforever Journey by Megan McDonald illustrated by Juliana Kolesova and Michael Dworkin American Girl Publishing August 2014 Growing up I was a big fan of Choose Your Own Adventure. As an adult I love mobile phone games and Kindle books, like Click Your Poison, that serve the same purpose: allowing you to put yourself and your decisions in the story. Unfortunately, the American Girl Beforever series is no CYOA. I've now read three of these books and each one provides many choices and endings but they just aren't as exciting as CYOA. This was the best of the three I read when it comes to the possible lessons learned as it is my opinion that this one being so close to our own time it is more relatable than some of the farther back ones. Girls cant play on a basketball team?! readers may wonder. And in that way this book actually brings the lessons home. Not necessarily the lessons of the book but more a familiarity with the time. Also, I'm disappointed that it seems like every American Girl Beforever book I've read seems to have a common plot point of the main character (you) dealing with having only one parent. In this case, Julie's parents are getting a divorce and the young girl (you) just moved across the country without her father. While these are like CYOA, there are some big differences. Here's the key difference in a nutshell: in good CYOA type books you feel like you are playing the book. In AG: B books you feel like you are making the choices that the writers want you to make. It's tied, in my opinion, to the fact that these books serve as advertisements for existing dolls with their own histories and stories so there is no wriggle room. If these were new dolls with new stories this wouldn't be an issue. Further, what is up with requiring readers to go online to beforever.com/endings to see certain endings? When you visit that site you see the endings for ALL the books in the series! This is a terrible way to end a "book" but a great marketing way to target young girls.