The Chalk Man - Review
"Nobody is innocent because we are all guilty of something"
Well, today I bring the review of one of my most recent readings, "The Chalk Man" is the debut novel by C. J. Tudor and gives us the story of a group of friends through one of them, Eddie, the misfit boy who ends like a lonely man with some addictions.
The writer took (really) seriously the "Always question and never assume" and "Nobody is innocent because everyone is guilty of something". Basically we end up always waiting for something bad to happen, some shocking revelation, some plot-twist impossible to predict.
And that would not be bad at all, if it had been well dosed in history. It has become extremely tedious, for me, to wait for shocking events in each chapter, and in the end we are left with just some tips of what might or may not happen, nothing really shocking therefore (and are some tips that don't even make sense, like the almost "supernatural" part in the story, which in the end we ended up realizing that... whatever).
And now more positive points because they still exist, the plot developed between past and future won me over, was a great way to narrate the events. I also loved the characters, they end up developing and evolving as they get older, but never lose their essence and the vast majority (not to say everyone) don't have the wounds of the past healed, I think that makes them seem more real. The lack of innocence of absolutely everyone in the book also pleased me, I won't deny it, we almost managed to spend the entire book thinking that everyone is to blame. And in the end it turns out to be a half-truth, because really everyone is "guilty of something" and bye bye innocence.
In conclusion, it is a dark and fast-reading thriller, which nevertheless failed to arrest me properly. It was not one of those books that we have to stick to all night until it is finished because we NEED to know the end. Like, "It's good, but not that good." Furthermore, the similarities between Stephen King's stories and writing are more than obvious and impossible to ignore (unless you have never read a book by the author), which is understandable for a debut, especially considering that King was one of the author's main inspirations.
The final chapter is another disappointment, there are logical explanations for (almost) all the questions, but they are not questions that will explode with any mind, they are just logical and this can leave the ending with a little disappointing flavor.
This book achieved a 6/10 with some effort, yet I still want to read "The Taking of Annie Thorne" because I'm really confident that it will be (at least a little bit) better. And this was my opinion <3, stay at home and wash your hands!