I'm really glad I didn't judge this book by the cover. When I first saw the stick art I thought, "well maybe it'll be okay" since a lot of visual novel style games use art to carry it.
But this isn't just a novel. Every choice impacts the story. It reminds me of Scriptwelder's Don't Escape.
And the game was so amazing that the stick art wasn't an issue at all and actually made the game work I think. In fact I think if you used fully drawn character portraits it wouldn't have been as engaging. Somehow it just works.