Afternoon Everyone,

I’m on fire with my blog posts this last couple of weeks. I can’t remember the last time I posted so frequently and I’m really enjoying it. I don’t have much to report on since my last post, so I’ll jump straight into the review.

Book 📖

I read and reviewed The Other People by C.J. Tudor a short while ago and after reading that, vowed I would read her other work because I enjoyed it so much. The Chalk Man was the first of her books that I could find so I thought it was as good a place as any to start.

Description 🔖

Eddie and his gang of friends are normal 12 year olds and spend their time out on their bikes, looking for adventure. It’s 1986 and during the summer the friends make up a code to communicate with other using drawings in chalk. They leave drawings of little chalk men to send messages to each other. A chalk man that none of them recognises turns up and leads them to a dismembered body and everything changes for the group from then on.

Fast forward to 2016 and Eddie is still friendly with the same gang. They all receive a letter containing a drawing of a single stick figure but pass it off as a prank, until one of them ends up dying under suspicious circumstances. Eddie then takes it upon himself to figure out what really happened to the dismembered body decades ago in order to keep himself and his friends from harm.

General Thoughts 🤔

Wow this book was intense. There were so many possibilities for what the truth could be, I was massively engaged throughout. The entire story is riddled with secrets and mysteries and every single chapter delivers tension and drama. There were times I really wasn’t sure if I knew what the actual crime(s) was.

I listened to the audiobook and the narration was fantastic. The narrators didn’t just read the book, they acted the entire thing. Huge kudos goes to the narrator for “2016 Eddie”. I almost felt like I was watching rather than reading/listening.

Characters 👫👭👬

Eddie is the main character and I flip flopped so much with him. I felt bad for him and then I was suspicious of him then he annoyed me then I was cheering him on.

I found Chloe to be really interesting. There was something about her from the first time she was introduced into the book that made me think she was going to play some kind of larger part in the story. What I didn’t expect was what actually came out in the story.

I don’t want to say too much and give away spoilers but I thought it was so clever how there was enough doubt sewn in throughout the book to make me question everyone at one point or another. I never knew who the good guys were and who the bad guys were.

Writing Style ✍️

There are so many intricacies in this book I just can’t even begin to imagine how complex planning everything out and then actually writing it would be. No stone is left unturned, there are no loose ends and everything just resolves itself by the end of the book. I cannot praise the author enough for how good she is at writing stories within a story.

Each chapter skips between past Eddie and present Eddie and not one chapter feels like a filler as you sometimes get in books. Every one is rich with story and information and nudged me as a reader closer and closer to the edge of my seat.

Conclusion & Scoring 🏅

I have nothing but good things to say about this book and this author. The book is full of mystery and thrills and twists and turns and everything that I love. I cannot wait for more C.J. Tudor in my life and I don’t think I’ll be leaving it very long before I read more.

😍😍😍😍😍