The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor

I have to get this out of the way before I discuss anything else about the book because yeah, it really bothered me. The Chalk Man starts off reeeally reminiscent of Stephen King's It. It has chapters which alternate between 2016 and the 1980s, and in the latter chapters it focuses on a group of kids who like to ride bicycles. These kids are all boys apart from one red-headed girl who is being abused by her father. There is also a kid who likes to do voices (he doesn't actually do them a lot, the narration just tells us he does) and a kid named Eddie. The bullies have walked straight out of a Stephen King novel too, and there is the similar mix of weirdly sexual and also supernatural elements that dominates King's signature style. Thankfully the actual plot has no similarities to anything that I can see but it was deeply unsettling at the start to read something that felt so derivative.

Now that that's out of the way, I can actually talk about whether or not I liked this book. This is a very solid mystery with an engaging writing style and plenty going on plot-wise. I feel like it was very different from what I expected. I'm not sure why but the blurb made me picture a fast-paced intense thriller whereas this is more of a coming-of-age mixed with a murder mystery. I read almost all of it in one sitting which as always, may have influenced my opinion of pacing etc.

At first, I was also apprehensive because it appears like the story is going to take a supernatural turn. Thankfully this doesn't really happen (there is some element of unearthly things going on but it can be easily ignored if you wish) which I was grateful for as I hate not knowing a book is supernatural beforehand. As I mentioned, there is a lot going on in the plot and it is paced pretty well so as not to feel cluttered. The one downfall is the author does a lot of 'breadcrumbing'-that is, dropping cryptic statements about what is about to happen in the 1980s. This would be fine if they weren't stacked quite a lot (as in, you get one cliffhanger comment and then another one before the first one is resolved) and some of them don't get resolved until literally the last few pages. I'm all for building suspense but it was a bit irritating at times and a lot to keep in your mind.

Apart from these minor niggles, I really enjoyed this book. It has solid characters and I really got invested in the story. It genuinely surprised me multiple times and didn't feel like a cop-out. Some of the details are perhaps a little hard to swallow but the author does wrap everything up so kudos to them. It is by no means my favourite thriller ever but it was very unique and I feel like I will remember the story without it bleeding into other ones. Considering the amount of mediocre thrillers I read, this is no small feat.

Overall Rating:

.5