Have you ever sat down and thought about how boring it is to read a book line by line, chapter by chapter? How bland is it to read a book in a linear fashion? If you’ve ever thought that, here’s some good news for you!  There are these things called interactive novellas. They allow readers to basically choose how they want the story to continue. One novella of this sort is called Pry.

Pry is an interactive novella about a guy named James who was in the Gulf War with his friends, Luke and Jesse. The story starts out with a simple enough video prologue, but quickly turns into a confusing jumble of blinking and flashing words.

James is suffering from what seems to be PTSD and is losing his eyesight,his doctor claims it’s psychosomatic, but he believes it’s real and is affecting his ability to decipher what is real and what isn’t. While moving through the story, readers have to help figure out what is correct. Pinching the screen allows the reader to look deep into James’ subconscious while prying it open allows us to see what’s currently happening in his conscious mind and in the outside world. You must pry and pinch through the app  in order to get the entire story.

At the end of the chapter select, there is an option to see how many diamonds they have collected. The diamonds come from the chapters and show how much of the story that has been read. The reader can find anything from childhood memories to current events to war flashbacks. “This novella grabs the reader and makes them want to dig for more. It even makes people who do not like to read (like myself) to want to read and stays interested wanting the whole story.” (Shelby)

“Pry  reaches out to  religious book readers, and those who haven’t picked up a book in their life.  It broadens the perspective of literature and may put to question your idea of what literature  is.”(Lydia) For myself, Pry was a fairly difficult read and I’m one of those people who read 9 different books at once. Pry, I feel, is a difficult read because of how in depth the story gets. In just the 6th chapter, the reader has to pry and pry and pry and just when they think they’re done, there’s more. So much of the story is hidden that the reader has to really want to figure out what’s going on, they will likely  spend hours doing so.