Sofie Laguna

The Choke is a mesmerising, harrowing and ultimately uplifting novel from the 2015 Miles Franklin winner.

The Choke

Natalie Manuel

** spoiler alert **
           A bit conflicted about this one.

I like the idea of the structure - having Justine in all her innocence as the narrator means we feel just as removed from the 'action' as she is. We know what's going on, but we are separated. It works well in some ways to show how remove Justine is from having any agency about her own life.

But it also backfired for me a little because I did feel so removed and distant from what was happening. She was so incredibly naive to anything going on that it almost felt frustrating, even though it was not her fault at all.

The end was pretty terrible from a plot point of view. Justine's sleep walks through her entire life up until this point (partly as a defensive mechanism and partly because she's neglected and uneducated) and yet suddenly manages to kill all the chickens, confront her rapist and ask him for a LIFT, go interstate, track down her aunty, and in the space of a day circumvent a contract and get her baby back. Really? 

This 14 year old girl knows nothing - nothing! She barely understood she was pregnant. Yet she's going to live happily ever after being a mum?

I enjoyed the book but didn't love it as others have - I think the story may have been more powerful if not all from Justine's POV, as she is so incredibly naive about everything that it's difficult to connect to all the events going on around her.

The Choke

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