Choker

by Elizabeth Woods

What if the only friend you could trust turned out to be dangerous? A new thriller from debut author Elizabeth Woods!

• ISBN10: 1442412348
• ISBN13: 9781442412347
• Publish Date: 7 February 2012 (first published 4 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Edition: Reprint ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

[Chelsea]

Initial Thoughts

I expected a cute contemporary book about a girl who doesn’t fit in. That’s exactly how the book starts. I was expecting a cute romance and a happy ending which isn’t quite what happened.

My New BFF

I liked Cara enough but not as a bff. She’s kind of annoying because she just goes through life and doesn’t try. That bothers me more than it should. She was a good enough character though.

My Crush

No crush in this book! It’s not that kind of book for me.

Writing Style

The writing style in this book is interesting. The author is really good at deceptions and lies. You’re reading what happening but you can tell there’s something not quite right. The plot was pretty interesting but the characters didn’t really do it for me. I thought they could have been a little better. It was still a good book to read though.

Closing Thoughts

I wasn’t quite prepare for the craziness of this book. You’re expecting something completely different from all the murders and lies. It’s completely insane how this book messes with your mind. I think that’s why this book got a higher rating for me, because of the ending. It’s just not what you’re expecting even though you were kind of expecting something like this to happen. I don’t want to spoil, but seriously give this book a chance.

[celinenyx]

Choker has been on my to be read list since it came out in 2011. During that time, the book kicked up some dust with its rather disturbing story seemingly at odds with the cute pink cover. The reviews were all rather mysterious, trying very hard not to spoil anything important.

Cara is not the popular kid in school. She does track, but it's almost as if she's invisible to the other kids in school. She is always on the side, and is often the butt of jokes. One day she chokes on a piece of carrot, and the bullying intensifies. When she comes home, she find her old best friend Zoe in her bedroom. But when people start to get hurt, Cara suspects Zoe isn't being completely honest with her.

Choker is about many things; bullying, grieving, loss, mental illness, distant parents or abusive parents. It skirts most of them, just letting them touch the story, and only really dives into one or two. I liked that it didn't try to give any answers, didn't try to make it into one big happy hugfest in the end. Because of this the story is rather disturbing though, and actually quite sad.

I'm not someone that has a long attention span, and I rarely read a book in one sitting. If my Kindle hadn't run out of battery when I was at 75%, I'm sure I would have been able to finish it at once. The book is a small 230 pages long, yet it didn't feel too short it all. The length was perfect for the story, and the creepiness factor helps to keep you turning the pages at a high speed.

Suspicious as I am, I already knew what the plot twist was going to be at around twenty percent. This didn't make me enjoy the story itself any less, but it did make the ending a bit less of a shocker for me. Choker is a good, sad little book.

[Amber]

The plot in this book picks up pretty quickly. It has to, as this book has little over 200 pages. The story follows Cara through her day-to-day life, and especially focuses on her relationship with her friend Zoe, who has moved into Cara’s bedroom with her. This relationship develops throughout the book, and is really the main focus, and it shows Cara starting to realise that maybe Zoe isn’t such a great friend at all. However, she’s her best friend and she can’t just make her leave.

The murder mystery part of the plot kept me very intrigued. I was enjoying reading about it, and guessing who the murderer could be.

I felt so sorry for Cara when she was being bullied. I really liked her character, and when she grew more confident with herself I was literally cheering for her.

I won’t say much about Zoe, because the whole mystery that surrounds her in the beginning is amazing and terrifying.

I really loved Cara’s love interest, Ethan. I thought he was really sweet, even though he was the boyfriend of one of the bullies who started calling Cara “Choker”. I wish we had seen more of him.

Now to my favourite part - the ending! If you were starting to get a little bored of this book, then I do urge you to keep reading, just for the amazing ending! I’m not going to say too much about it, but I will say you learn who the killer is, and it may come to a shock to a lot of you. There were a few hints thrown in throughout the books, and if you picked up on those then you may well have figured it out (I did) but you have to keep reading to see if your theory was correct, right? And even if you did guess correctly, learning about why the killer did it is especially interesting and captivating!

Let me tell you, this story is one that will stay with you for a long time!

[Joni Reads]

I first became aware of this book when I ran across it on a blog and it sounded amazing. Basically, Cara moved away from her best friend Zoe in the fifth grade and she is bullied constantly at her new school. Then Zoe shows up at her house unexpectedly one night and suddenly everything changes. Cara starts getting invited to parties and she starts getting attention from Ethan, the boy she has been crushing on for years. But girls from school start dying and Zoe starts acting odd. Cara starts to wonder why her best friend ran away from home and what she does all day while Cara is in school. She wants to trust her best friend but soon she comes to fear her instead.
Sounds great right? I thought so too. Then I opened the book and I figured out the entire story line and mystery before the prologue was even finished. This book was like knowing there was no wizard before you even started following the yellow brick road. The story line is brilliant but it is written so that the “mystery” is so obvious that I found myself getting bored and I finally skipped to the end just so I could read what would have been a climax of the book had I not known the secret already. Maybe it’s because I watch Criminal Minds too much though. For those of you out there who are interested in a mysterious read, go ahead and try this. But if you watch a lot of CSI type shows I bet you figure out the secret as fast as I did. This was a letdown. I thought it would be a great book and it truly isn’t bad. I feel the type of disappointment with this book as I did when people started telling me all the secrets to the last Harry Potter movie. I still saw the movie but there were no surprises anymore. Regardless, the story stuck with me and my mind has been drifting back to it every so often. Not a terrible book, but I don’t think it qualifies as a mystery either.

My Grade: C