Do you like friendship, betrayal and childhood trauma? Well I’ve got the book for you, The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor.
Interlude
Hello everyone, it’s Zeus from https://zeusdamora.com, I’m finally sticking to a promise and actually staying consistent so I hope you like that. So today I’ll be talking about The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor. I’ll cover everything about the book, (also known as much as covering as much as I want to). Before we continue, I have to warn you that there will be slight spoilers ahead, so like, I’ve warned you.
My Personal Experience
My personal experience with the book started in a random clearance sale. I entered with my family not expecting much, I expected to find some really mediocre books for cheap that could quench my thirst for books for at least a few weeks.
What I did not expect was this absolute gem of a book.
I put this book on my shelf waiting for the perfect time to start reading it. This whole experience taught me how important book covers are, because to be honest the only reason I didn’t immediately start reading the book was because the cover looked boring.
Now I’m not exaggerating when I say that when I read the first few sentences, I was hooked. I read the whole book in one sitting it was that good. To be fair up to this point I had only read a few Rick Riordan books so my standards weren’t that high to begin with, but I’m sure that doesn’t overshadow the masterpiece of a book it is.
What you can expect from this book (based on my experience);
- Incredible writing
- An intriguing storyline
- Chapters that will leave you on the edge of your seat
- The most surprising plot twists
(The author of The Chalk Man, C.J. Tudor).
Overview
I don’t want to give away too much so I’m going to keep this overview very short and brief.
The Chalk Man is a psychological thriller that follows protagonist Eddie Adams and his friends through multiple disturbing events (including lots of murders). Now what I found interesting about this book is that it alternates between two timelines. The book follows Eddie and his friends when they were children (during 1986) and also when Eddie and his friends have grown up and gone their own seperate ways.
“The Chalk Man” refers to a code used by the main characters, Eddie, Fat Gav (Gavin), Metal Mickey, Hoppo (David Hopkins) and Nicky, whose father is a vicar. Something to note is that Eddie’s mother works as a, what’s the word? Oh right, a baby deleter (you know what I’m talking about). So it’s really to no one’s surprise that although Eddie and Nicky are really close friends, their parents are the polar opposite.
1986
The book’s thrilling narrative starts in the first few pages, when a new albino English teacher, Mr Halloran and Eddie are tasked with saving a life. A woman who Eddie simply calls ‘Waltzer Girl’ is severely injured after a Waltzer ride fails, causing her to almost lose her leg and having her face destroyed. After saving her life Mr Halloran and Eddie are hailed as heroes in their town. We skip forward a few weeks to Fat Gav’s birthday in which Mr Halloran gifts Fat Gav with his very own set of chalk, and in doing so, he starts their tradition of using chalk as signs.
The main story and every mystery in the book all come back to one standout moment that happened in 1986, the kids finding a dismembered, lifeless body.
Now if I were to say any more I would definitely spoil the overarching narrative of the book, so that’s all the info I’m going to give you about the 1986 storyline.
2016
Eddie now finds himself as an English teacher, just like Mr Halloran. He also has a bit of a crush on his much younger boarder, Chloe. Understandably Eddie does not want to ever re-visit the traumatic memories that happened in ‘86.
But eventually he has to visit those memories when Metal Mickey calls him and says that he’s figured out the murder that’s haunted them for years, decades. As we follow Eddie uncover the hidden truths of the murder of ‘86, a merciless body count follows him everywhere he goes.
(Pretend this is Eddie Halloran, I promise I tried searching up pictures of him but they’re literally non-existent, so we’ll have to settle with this picture of Sherlock Holmes, since they both do detective stuff).
Conclusion
One thing that I’ll never understand is how this book is only rated 3,7/5 on Goodreads. This book is all you could want from a thriller, in fact, I haven’t given it justice in this book review, once you pick the book up you’ll never want to stop, and I promise that it will exceed your expectations, no matter how high they might be.
Thank You
Thank you all for reading this, I’m currently not exactly following a publish schedule and I’m basically just trying to post as much as I possibly can. This book review might’ve had a few mistakes in it so please forgive me if I did make any. The next post will most likely be another $didid post, and if you don’t know what $didid is, you should definitely go and check out my previous post about it. In that post I talk about what it is and why I made it, so that’s neat.
Once again thanks for reading, this is Zeus singing off. Cheers.
