Thursday, January 27, 2011

Choker by Elizabeth Woods

What if the only friend you could trust turned out to be dangerous? -- Amazon


Cara Lange hasn't had a true friend since her parents transported her to a new town in the fifth grade; since they took her away from her best, and only, friend Zoe. She has been an outcast since her arrival, having never really "fit in", and things only get worse in high school. Cara is constantly tormented by two popular girls, Sydney and Alexis, who seem to have made it their goal to make Cara's life at school miserable.

One day, out of the clear blue, Zoe arrives at Cara's house needin
g a place to escape from her abusive step-father. Fearing that someone may come looking for Zoe, the girls decide its best not to let anyone, especially Cara's parents, know that Zoe is holing up in Cara's bedroom. Cara's life takes a 180-degree turn for the better with Zoe's arrival, but when strange things begin happening around town shortly after Zoe's arrival Cara begins to suspect her best friend is somehow connected.

Cara is torn between the love she has for her best friend and
a sickening feeling she just can't shake; she knows Zoe has something to do with it. When Cara decides she has to tell her parents, tell someone, what's going on, the story takes a wild turn that smacks you straight in the face just when you've decided that you know how its gonna end. If you want to know what the deal is with Cara's creepy best friend, you'll have to read to find out--no spoiling here.


Debut author Elizabeth Woods' delivers a clever, well written, breakout novel loaded with suspense in her breakout novel. This is definitely one of those, "I didn't see that coming," books--which for me are some of the best kinds. For the past week I've been obsessing over this book--I'm usually always reading more than one book at a time, especially now that I'm participating in two book challenges-- and have been driving myself crazy, and my telling my book-whore friends that I was dying waiting for the story to break. I almost couldn't take any more anticipation waiting for the climax ... waiting ... waiting ... then, smack, there it was. Now that I've finished, I have to say, the craziness was so, so worth it.

The book is very short, 177 pages, and the most genius thing about Woods' writing, is that at every step the story was totally exciting, but predictable. If it weren't so pent up with anticipation I probably would've stopped reading it because I felt like I knew what was gonna happen next, and I did. I was driven to continue reading because it was psychologically thrilling, because I loved the darkness of Zoe's character and was fascinated watching her develop, and because I was so sure I knew what would happen next, I had to stick around to ensure my predictions were in line with the story the author was telling.

All of my predictions about the story were right, with very little exception, until they weren't anymore. I got to the end and Elizabeth Woods shook my entire theory about how the book would end and it fell apart; she turned my theory on its head. This was a fabulous moment, I'm talking, the ending blew-my-mind moment, and only a great writer can elicit this in a novel. I was astonished; it makes me wish I were starting the book all over again without knowledge of how it would turn out; I want that what the fuck happened feeling again. the more fun to have read.

So, what's Tha Motha's final recommendation on Choker; read and keep reading!! If you find yourself disappointed, which I'm quite confident you won't, then you can blame me :*)



3 comments:

Sidne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sidne said...

blog hopping: i'm going to add this book to my HTRATB2011. meaning hope to read all these books in 2011. Like your blog page.

Carissa said...

Wonderful review! I haven't heard much on this book and judging by your review it sounds like something I'm really going to enjoy!

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