Vale, Lucien. Imagine If…Tupac Did Not Go To Vegas. Shattered Mythos Press, 2025.
Reason read: I am a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing. I occasionally get to review interesting books and this was one of them.
The one thing to keep in mind when reading Lucien Vale’s Imagine If series is that it is pure fiction. You are imagining an alternate ending to a well-known story. Everyone knows Tupac was murdered in Las Vegas. Vale is simply flipping the script and imagining a scenario where Pac would decide against that fateful trip. Vale cleverly finds a real life story and imagines an alternate ending. I don’t really care if the events in New York City mirror fact or not. The whole idea is to ask what if? and to be entertained. The action of Imagine If is tightly wound and fast paced. It reads like a movie with exaggerated dialogue full of gangster lingo and drama. If entertainment was Vale’s goal, he succeeded.
Confessional: one of my favorite movies is Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow. It is the story of Helen’s two very different lives: the life she would lead if she had caught the train going home and the alternate where she misses it.
Author fact: Lucien Vale has also written an “Imagine” book about Bruce Lee.
Book trivia: Imagine If… is a very short 77 pages long.
~*LunaSea*~ 