Choose Your Own Adventure: At the Mountains of Madness
Chooseco LLC (September, 2025)
Reviewed by Christina Persaud
Today, cosmic horror is having its moment in the celestial spotlight, especially among young readers. From artificial intelligence to the limits of our scientific understanding, kids are looking to the stars and questioning their place in the universe. Jacopo della Quercia captures this curiosity with At the Mountains of Madness, one of the latest books in the Choose Your Own Adventure series published by Chooseco.
Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s 1936 novella of the same name, At the Mountains of Madness follows a group of kids as they traverse the unimaginable while camping in Antarctica. Mysteries upon mysteries unfold as you, the reader, lead campers using your instincts and best judgment, or else meet their untimely end. Packed with Lovecraftian lore and mythos, the book is fun, exciting, and wildly imaginative.
Author and educator Jacopo della Quercia (pen name of Giacomo Calabria) is an academic scholar and author of numerous novels and a play.
Rather than a retelling, Calabria describes At the Mountains of Madness as a sequel set in the modern day. Within the pages are mentions of The Old Ones, the Necronomicon, Argus Panoptes, as well as the mysterious Miskatonic University. It is an action-packed work that is sure to pull young readers in – a wonderful introduction to those who may be brand new to Lovecraft’s work.
Readers never know what they’ll run into with each turn of the page. Calabria divulges that there are three main storylines for readers to choose from and follow. Offering a multitude of possible outcomes, the endings are both delightfully horrendous and hilarious as you determine your own fate. Push onwards by making the right choices, however, and the reward is a story that delivers a genuine triumph for the young adventurer.
I thoroughly enjoyed At the Mountains of Madness as I journeyed with the young protagonists in the book. It is a wonderful addition to the well-known series, doing what Choose Your Own Adventure does so well – bridging the thrill of interaction with the joy of reading for the youngest of readers.
Find At the Mountains of Madness everywhere books are sold.
Articlesofhorror.com is grateful to Chooseco for providing a review copy of At the Mountains of Madness.
by Christina Persaud