Review for Choker by Elizabeth Woods

"Sixteen-year-old Cara Lange has been a loner ever since she moved away from her best and only friend, Zoe, years ago. She eats lunch with the other girls from the track team, but they're not really her friends. Mostly she spends her time watching Ethan Gray from a distance, wishing he would finally notice her, and avoiding the popular girls who call her "Choker" after a humiliating incident in the cafeteria. Then one day Cara comes home to find Zoe waiting for her. Zoe's on the run from problems at home, and Cara agrees to help her hide. With her best friend back, Cara's life changes overnight. Zoe gives her a new look and new confidence, and next thing she knows, she's getting invited to parties and flirting with Ethan. Best of all, she has her BFF there to confide in. But just as quickly as Cara's life came together, it starts to unravel. A girl goes missing in her town, and everyone is a suspect—including Ethan. Worse still, Zoe starts behaving strangely, and Cara begins to wonder what exactly her friend does all day when she's at school. You're supposed to trust your best friend no matter what, but what if she turns into a total stranger?" I’ve really been enjoying Young Adult psychological thriller books recently and so when I heard the thrill-tastic synopsis for 2011 debut novel Choker I was more than willing to give it a read and so downloaded it as my first book to read on my Kindle. This book was everything I hoped it would be. It was dark, twisted, and delicious with a compulsively readable plot. I found it incredibly hard to put this book down and read it in two sittings. Chokers a very plot driven story. The suspense and intrigue of the murders are what keeps you turning the pages. This books fairly short so I didn’t feel there was much time to really get to know Cara and the rest of the characters but they were easy to get along with and although they weren’t the most developed characters in the world they were fine to read about and didn’t bring the book down in anyway. Being a psychological thriller Choker’s really all about the creep-tastic plot and so although the characters weren’t particularly memorable the thrills more than made up for it. Elizabeth Woods is a fantastic debut author, her writing was chilling and the plots twists and turns were fantastic and really well thought out. Sadly I guessed the big twist fairly early on in the story because I’d read an adult book similar to Choker. The twist was still excellent though and really made the book what it was, I think that if I hadn’t of read such a similar book I wouldn’t have guessed the ending. Guessing the big twist didn’t really bother me though, I spent much of the book trying to decide if my suspicions were right or not and I couldn’t wait to get to the end for the big dramatic climax. Overall I really enjoyed Choker. It scared me, made me think and kept me up late reading. There’s a big gap in the young adult market for books like Choker at the moment. Books that aren’t afraid to kill off characters and have things happen that might “upset” young readers because there isn’t a pretty sparkly happy ending. I LOVE books like this, that are real and brutal and I hope that Elizabeth Woods has some more deliciously dark tales up her sleeve for us. Recommended to anybody looking for a book that will either keep you up late at night because you cannot stop reading or because it’s on your mind and you can’t sleep. My Rating 4/5 stars **** Synopsis taken from goodreads