Patchwork Girl’s layout is quite interesting. One could spend hours clicking through the story. With a book the reader has no choice but to read from cover to cover. With hypertext, the reader is able to choose where they want to go. They get to participate more in the story. This can be very engaging. It reminds me very much of those choose your own adventure books that I read as a child. At the bottom of the page it would give you a choice of what you wanted to happen next. Once you chose, it would direct you to another page. I used to love these books. They would keep me entertained for hours. That was what happened when I looked at Patchwork Girl for the first time. It was like an adventure.
I thought the same thing about the choose your own adventure books. They were entertaining but at the same time I always found myself getting frustrated. That is exactly how I feel with this novel. I don’t like that I feel like I am missing parts of the story by skipping over some of the links.
Because Patchwork Girl is so disconnected, it is also very hard to get lost in the story. Although you can get caught up in trying to find the next link, it is not the same as completely disappearing into the story. “I tipped up and back in my chair, clicked and clicked again, waiting patiently for the empowering rush that ought to come when worlds open upon other worlds and old limits collapse” (Birkerts 151). This is exactly how someone should feel while reading a story. Like they are in another world. Like anything is possible. There is no flow in Patchwork Girl making it very hard to feel this way.
