Choker by Elizabeth Woods

Summary Provided by Simon & Schuster:

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?

My Thoughts:

First off, let’s start by discussing how gorgeous the cover is. It’s what drew me to the book in the first place. I loved the colors and the way the title was written I kept outlining it with my finger. I also really loved the design on the first page of each chapter. Choker is a very beautifully designed book.

Ok, now to the actual book review. Cara is your typical teenage outcast. She’s invisible, lonely, and misses her best friend, Zoe, who she hasn’t seen in years. I would say that Cara and Zoe’s friendship wasn’t a healthy one, both being kind of obsessed with the other. One day at lunch, Cara chokes on a carrot, earning the nickname, “choker”, but also getting the attention of popular boy, Ethan. Cara doesn’t think her life could get any worse. Then one day, her childhood best friend, Zoe, is in her room and asks to stay for a few days. Cara is so happy to have her friend back and Zoe helps her in becoming more confident. She starts flirting and hanging out with Ethan, she dresses better, makes friends, and does really well at her track meet. Things are not peachy though, because the popular girls, the girls who gave Cara her nickname, are being murdered.

This was a fast read for me. At 233 pages, it only took me a little over an hour. The ending definitely surprised me, and I was not expecting it. The characters bothered me a little though. Zoe was just insane, Cara annoyed me and was really stupid when it came to her friendship with Zoe, and the popular girls were so typical that there was nothing surprising about them. I enjoyed Ethan’s character though. He wasn’t a jerk, and at first I thought he was only being nice to Cara because his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Alexis (could also be credited as Popular girl # 1/Mean girl #1), wanted him to, but that wasn’t the case. Ethan was just a really nice guy who liked Cara and wanted to get to know her.

Overall, I gave this book 3 stars on goodreads. It definitely had potential, and there were some good parts to it that I enjoyed.

*This is 2011 Debut Author* 

Love, Kristina