In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.
In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he's put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead.
That's when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.
Blurb taken from Goodreads.
I was intrigued by this book at first. And when I started reading it, I found the story was easy to read and easy to follow, even with the consistent jumps in perspective between past and present. However, it didn't take long for me to lose my enthusiasm about it. It just didn't feel very original, and I found it quite boring in places. I felt like I'd already read the same story a hundred times before. That's the problem with using a classic narrative - you have to get it spot on or it's just too samey.
That being said, there isn't anything wrong with the book by any means, and I did enjoy it. It was decent, and I think the main character in particular was written well enough to hold the plot together, and keep the reader interested. I was just a little disappointed that it didn't bring more to the table.
Rating: ✫✫✫
SPOILER ALERT
The Story
This story had all the elements of a classic psychological thriller. There was a mystery that needs solving, which has been revisited years later, and the pieces of the original story are put together through the eyes of a child in the past. There's also the dual perspective, with the narrative switching back and forth between the past and the present. It's a classic technique, and it always works. The problem is that because it always works, it's been done so many times before. Therefore, the actual story has to be really great in order to stand out. Unfortunately, for me, this just wasn't. The dual perspective reminded me of the second part of It (where the adults reflect on what happened to them when they were young, and come up against Pennywise again); there is a group of boys and one girl, who happens to have red hair and a terrible father. It was so familiar, in fact, that I spent half the time reading The Chalk Man feeling almost as if I'd read it all before.
That being said, I did like Ed, and thought he was a strong character to lead the story. The more interesting side of the story was the side that recollected on the past, as this provided the bulk of the information about the mystery. But I did like reading about the present day too, purely because Ed was so likeable and relatable; he manages to carry the story and ground it to the present, which was important with so much going on in the chapters about the past. And it's a good job he was such a solid character, because the only other really consistent character in the present was Chloe. I liked Chloe immediately as well, and the dynamic between them was good; I appreciated the unusual relationship between them and the way this tied into the plot. All other characters kind of fade in and out, which is a shame. There is so much going on in the past, with so many relevant and interesting characters, that it felt most of the time like the present day was a little dull in comparison. Rather than feeling like the two complemented each other, they were inconsistent in how much they had to offer. Having more prominent characters in the present day would have added so much more to the book, elevating it from just a book about the past that conveniently gets solved in the present.
But perhaps the thing that bothered me the most about this story was that half of the characters who are emphasised so heavily in the first part of the book - Mickey's brother Sean, and Mr Holloran, for example - end up having next to nothing to do with the eventual reveal. They do have varying degrees of importance in moving the plot forward, but in some cases it's ridiculously minimal. Mr Holloran ends up being basically dismissed, but at least his relationship with 'Waltzer Girl' ended up being significant. Sean, on the other hand, is made out to be a hugely significant character, but ends up having next to nothing to do with the mystery. I mean, it's one thing to throw in a red herring, but it's quite another to base your plot around a character who need not even be part of the story. It's like the author had all these ideas and threw them all at one book, regardless of whether they actually worked as one cohesive plot. They all needed to be a little more intertwined, even if it was only subtly, if it was going to be a successful mystery. Nonetheless, the Reverend and Ed's Mum consistently had the most interesting storyline, and that did factor in, thankfully. The other element that I actually loved was that Chloe turned out to be Nicky's sister. That was a shock for me! I didn't expect it at all, and I was so intrigued to see what part that played. It turned out, it played almost no part. Just another idea that wasn't executed effectively enough. Nicky comes back for 10 seconds and then is gone again. Great.
I spent most of the book waiting for that moment you always get in the middle of a mystery, where things start to get exciting. Things get exciting and you can't put the book down because you need to know where everything is heading. But that moment never came. The ending happened and I was left feeling, frankly, dissatisfied.
But perhaps the thing that bothered me the most about this story was that half of the characters who are emphasised so heavily in the first part of the book - Mickey's brother Sean, and Mr Holloran, for example - end up having next to nothing to do with the eventual reveal. They do have varying degrees of importance in moving the plot forward, but in some cases it's ridiculously minimal. Mr Holloran ends up being basically dismissed, but at least his relationship with 'Waltzer Girl' ended up being significant. Sean, on the other hand, is made out to be a hugely significant character, but ends up having next to nothing to do with the mystery. I mean, it's one thing to throw in a red herring, but it's quite another to base your plot around a character who need not even be part of the story. It's like the author had all these ideas and threw them all at one book, regardless of whether they actually worked as one cohesive plot. They all needed to be a little more intertwined, even if it was only subtly, if it was going to be a successful mystery. Nonetheless, the Reverend and Ed's Mum consistently had the most interesting storyline, and that did factor in, thankfully. The other element that I actually loved was that Chloe turned out to be Nicky's sister. That was a shock for me! I didn't expect it at all, and I was so intrigued to see what part that played. It turned out, it played almost no part. Just another idea that wasn't executed effectively enough. Nicky comes back for 10 seconds and then is gone again. Great.
I spent most of the book waiting for that moment you always get in the middle of a mystery, where things start to get exciting. Things get exciting and you can't put the book down because you need to know where everything is heading. But that moment never came. The ending happened and I was left feeling, frankly, dissatisfied.
The Verdict
I've given this book a bit of a bashing, and I have to say here that it really wasn't bad. It was a decent story, with good characters. It was all good. But it definitely didn't blow me away. I have to confess here that I did actually move house in the middle of reading this book, so that might have something to do with my lack of investment in the story (I had to put it down for a while and then pick it back up again!). But honestly, I don't think it did. It just felt like a bit of a trudge. And it was all looking so promising from a few chapters in.
I just spent the whole time reading it expecting more. The same framework for the story had been done before, so it needed to be excellent in order to stand out. Ed was a great character for the reader to latch on to, but everything else just fell short. So much potential, but such a shame.
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