4 Stars
Which came first. The chalk men or the killing?
The Chalk Man was kind of a mixed bag amongst my friends. The dissenters in the ranks all seem to have the same complaint – Uncle Stevie wrote it better. I say to them, this is nothing like his stuff, I mean his are set in Northeastern America and this is very much . . . .
See? Not alike at all.
Okay, just kidding. I kinda get where the nonbelievers are coming from since Eddie Munster, Fat Gav, Metal Micky, Hoppo and Nicky could easily be compared to . . . .
And the premise of the waywayback timeline centers around . . . .
But for me that was where the similarities ended. C.J. Tudor definitely has a voice of her own and expresses it oh-so-well in this debut novel. There’s nothing quite like a mystery that I don’t have solved within the first 15-20% to make me a believer as well. And the wibbly wobbly timeline? Handled with ease. This is a toss up if it will or won’t work for you. I loved the nostalgia, I didn’t mind the homage to The Master – mainly because it didn’t strike me as a poor imitation – and I loved that I didn’t really have to loooooooove any of the characters to still be interested in their story. It didn’t pull punches with the gore either (headless corpse say whaaaaaaa?) and was paced perfectly at a succinct less-than-300-pages length. All this equals a Kelly and Mitchell approved reading experience!
It took me four months and being approved for Tudor’s next book to serve as motivation to finally puke out this review. Thank you for the ARC, NetGalley, and I am obviously the reason I can’t have nice things . . . .
The Chalk Man was kind of a mixed bag amongst my friends. The dissenters in the ranks all seem to have the same complaint – Uncle Stevie wrote it better. I say to them, this is nothing like his stuff, I mean his are set in Northeastern America and this is very much . . . .
See? Not alike at all.
Okay, just kidding. I kinda get where the nonbelievers are coming from since Eddie Munster, Fat Gav, Metal Micky, Hoppo and Nicky could easily be compared to . . . .
And the premise of the waywayback timeline centers around . . . .
But for me that was where the similarities ended. C.J. Tudor definitely has a voice of her own and expresses it oh-so-well in this debut novel. There’s nothing quite like a mystery that I don’t have solved within the first 15-20% to make me a believer as well. And the wibbly wobbly timeline? Handled with ease. This is a toss up if it will or won’t work for you. I loved the nostalgia, I didn’t mind the homage to The Master – mainly because it didn’t strike me as a poor imitation – and I loved that I didn’t really have to loooooooove any of the characters to still be interested in their story. It didn’t pull punches with the gore either (headless corpse say whaaaaaaa?) and was paced perfectly at a succinct less-than-300-pages length. All this equals a Kelly and Mitchell approved reading experience!
It took me four months and being approved for Tudor’s next book to serve as motivation to finally puke out this review. Thank you for the ARC, NetGalley, and I am obviously the reason I can’t have nice things . . . .
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