First sentence: It starts with a selfie. He is a random; we are not even sure of his name. We are always meeting them whenever we go out. Laura says it's because I look friendly. I think it's because I am always daydreaming, making up lives for people as I stare at them, and they think I'm inviting them over to chat.

Premise/plot: Joanna Oliva has a choice to make--a big one. She's been followed home from the bar--or she thinks she has. Someone is in pursuit, she can hear his steady footsteps, getting closer, closer. What happens next is quick, fast, and life-changing. He falls--she pushes? Should she flee the scene? stay and help? Report the crime? Or try to cover it up? The novel alternates between her choice(s). One set of chapters is the 'reveal'--what happens when she reports the accident. The other set of chapters is the 'conceal'--what happens when she flees the scene and does not tell anyone about the accident. The facts do differ in the two stories--a bit. Because her choice will have consequences on the guy in question...

The book is told in first person narrative. The readers get to know Joanna's friends and family through both choices...

My thoughts: It is compelling without a doubt. I had to keep reading to figure out which choice--if either--was better or better for her. I don't know that the ending was ultimately satisfying to me. (The two choices lead to the exact same ending as the two Joanna's merge, if you will). But if you are looking for a book that's hard to put down to read in a single weekend, or perhaps even a single sitting, this one may satisfy. It is set in the UK. It's format is unique, I think. ( )

In The Choice, by Gillian McAllister, both the protagonist and the reader are given the type of split second decision that can't be predicted, no matter how much we may wish otherwise.

What I mean, and what the story shows, is that no matter what we 'know' we would do in any given situation we can't know for sure until it happens. The drama in this story is looking at possible outcomes for either decision. As we read, we think about what we would (maybe) do, then we see what could result.

The "sliding door" style worked for me because it kept me thinking about not only what she had or had not done but what I might as well. That said, I can see where not having complete uninterrupted narratives might annoy some readers. For how I approached the book, the form worked well. For those who simply want a story with distinguishable beginning, middle, and end may find it doesn't work for them.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss. ( )

When Jo believes she is followed home from a bar, she pushes a man away from her. He falls and is unconscious. Now Jo has to make a choice, does she reveal or conceal what happened? This book is cleverly written to show what Jo's life would be if she follows each path, and how it affects her, and the lives of her husband and friends. It is an interesting concept to write the same story based on making one choice or another. ( )

This book started slowly but then improved. Actually an interesting story with a real dilemma ( )

The whole premise of Gillian McAllister’s The Choice is a clever one – and the book has caught the attention of prominent book-related publications such as the New York Times Book Review – so I expected big things when I picked it up. But that’s not really what happened.

The plot, admittedly, really is clever. In her panic, a young woman mistakenly pushes what she assumes to be a male accoster running her down from behind the instant he makes contact with her. The man, largely carried by his own momentum, takes a header down seven steps, and the woman hardly has time to take another breath before she is looking down at an unconscious man, a man who now hardly seems to be breathing. So now what does she do? “The choice” is hers and hers alone to make.

Does she simply turn and run, assuming that since it’s near midnight and no one is around, she can just go home and pretend none of this happened? Or does she dial 999 (this is London), confess what she’s done, and get the man the medical attention he seems so desperately to need? This is where McAllister makes a good decision. Rather than limit Joanna, the narrator, to a simple binary choice, the author allows her to make and experience both of them. For the rest of The Choice, via alternating chapters that are synced to the same chronological progress of time, the reader follows along as one Joanna calls 999 for help and the “other” Joanna runs away and tries to blend back in with her ordinary life.

Interestingly, as the months pass ever so slowly for the two Joannas, they suffer in very similar – and very different - ways, but they both suffer. The most unexpected consequences of Joanna’s decision, either way, are how those closest to her are affected. The lives of her best friend, her husband, her brother, and her boss are all very differently lived out depending on which way Joanna goes with calling or not calling for help.

Bottom Line: The Choice is based on an interesting premise, but the slow pacing of the novel and its limited action make for a bit of a disappointment to those hoping for, and expecting, more from the story. Joanna is not a particularly appealing character in the first place, and her prig of a husband is irritating in both versions of himself. Not unexpectedly, the victim turns out to be one of the only truly sympathetic characters in the novel, and I can’t help but wonder how much more interesting it may have been if he had turned out to be less of an innocent than he is portrayed as here. The Choice is not at all a bad book, but it’s nothing really special either. ( )