The Choice
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3.7 • 70 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
From the author of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick Wrong Place, Wrong Time and Just Another Missing Person comes a captivating, ingenious novel about a woman who must make an impossible decision....
“A Sliding Doors thriller with a moral dilemma at its heart. Brilliant.”—Claire Douglas, author of Last Seen Alive
It's the end of a night out and Joanna is walking home alone. Then she hears the sound every woman dreads: footsteps behind her, getting faster. She's sure it's him—the man from the bar who wouldn't leave her alone. So Joanna makes a snap decision. She turns, she pushes. Her pursuer tumbles down the steps and lies motionless, facedown on the ground. Now what?
Addictive and compelling, The Choice follows the two paths Joanna's future might take, depending on the choice she makes. If she calls the police right away, she can save the man's life. Yet doing so puts her own innocence at risk, as she waits for judgment on a charge of assault and the hope that her husband and everyone she loves will stand by her. But if she runs and goes home as if nothing has happened, no one will ever know. No one saw her do it, and it's only up to Joanna to keep quiet...forever.
“Almost unbearably tense.”—The New York Times Book Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Joanna, the protagonist of this uneven thriller from British author McAllister (The Good Sister), is walking home late one night from a London bar, where a man physically forced himself on her, when she hears footsteps behind her on the deserted street. Fearing the man is after her, she turns and pushes him down a flight of outdoor stairs. As he lies face down in a puddle, Joanna hesitates. Does she call for help or run away? The narrative then splits into two possible futures. In the chapters headed Conceal, Joanna flees and faces the consequences of keeping her dark secret, including bearing responsibility for a death. In the alternating Reveal chapters, her life unfolds as if she called for help and the police charge her with a crime. The intriguing setup compensates only in part for a lead without a distinctive character, though the closing chapters and the epilogue do offer some redemption. Others have done a better job with a similar premise.
Customer Reviews
Meh
It took me a while to get into the book, don’t get me wrong, the story was good, the writing not terrible, but it just wasn’t doing it for me. The ending wasn’t as good as I was hoping either, I was honestly hoping for a little more drama.