The Chalk Man<\/em> is supposed to be a very scary book about children and some games they play. The book is, indeed, gory. If you get squeamish about body parts spectacularly falling out of places they originally belonged to, this book is not a proper reading choice for you. I don\u2019t watch such scenes in movies but looks like I need something more than the scrutinised anatomy of amputated limbs to scare me when it comes to books. The story does manage to become slightly more interesting after the middle of the book. You start getting a clearer picture of who the victims are and what actually happened to them. There are also a few unexpected and well-arranged plot twists. The whole plot is knitted from many different threads so it\u2019s also interesting to see how they connect eventually.<\/p>\n \u00a0 The dialogues in any book could help reveal a character. It doesn\u2019t mean that a dialogue should be rubbed over a character like a thick layer of warning signs: attention, she\u2019s a bitch! Look out, he\u2019s an idiot!<\/em> Unfortunately, that\u2019s exactly what happens with the dialogues in The Chalk Man<\/em>. The lodger of the protagonist, for example, is not able to appear in any scene without producing a bitchy remark. Like a stupid robot, she says something unpleasant whenever she opens her mouth, just for the sake of it. The protagonist himself is not able to mention her without a snappy remark of his own even if it\u2019s about a banal, unrelated to the plot, shopping list. In fact, he always tries to impress you with his misplaced humour but instead he just sounds like a distant relative whose silly jokes you have to acknowledge with a polite smile.<\/p>\n None of them is developed enough to be multidimensional. They are all just tools to serve the plot. They never grow larger than a function assigned to them.<\/p>\n Warning: if you know these clich\u00e9s they will turn into spoilers for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n Below are a few clich\u00e9s from the book. How many of them will you be able to guess? If you do recognise a clich\u00e9 though, it will be a spoiler for you. Question one: what will happen to a pet in a spooky thriller? Question two: what will happen to a person who announces he knows who the murderer is but will reveal the name later? As for the villain, it\u2019s not a butler (because there\u2019s no butler Suspense is a condiment. You add it to the whole dish to spice it up, to make it more interesting. What will happen to the dish if you unload the whole pack of spices in it? Exactly. Suspense is a must in a thriller but it cannot be the main substance of the plot! You can\u2019t lead a reader through the most of your book just by a mere promise to reveal something spooky later.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen people praising the book and saying they left the lights on at night and couldn\u2019t go to sleep while reading the book. My experience wasn\u2019t anything like that. I guess I should be scared by a different type of things and whatever they are, they should be better written.<\/p>\n Thanks a lot to the publishers for a copy in exchange for my honest review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you get squeamish about body parts spectacularly falling out of places they originally were attached to, this book might be not a proper reading choice for you. Continue reading The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[140,181,292,298,573,574,575,576,640],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/media.giphy.com\/media\/1XeFkigxRQdSumokWd\/giphy.gif\")
The only thing that scared me, actually, was the wish to drop\u00a0The Chalk Man<\/em> 50 percents into the story. I had been longing for the book so much! I had been so excited to have my request for it approved! I had thanked the publisher, I had received good wishes from the author and here I was, not being able to last through another page. I summoned my courage and continued. Here is my obviously honest review.<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s good about The Chalk Man<\/em> by C. J. Tudor<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/media.giphy.com\/media\/3oEduYuCeCqUHRPUbu\/giphy.gif\")
<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s bad about The Chalk Man<\/em> by C. J. Tudor<\/h4>\n
The dialogues<\/h5>\n
![](\"https:\/\/media.giphy.com\/media\/t7tmqq0hmLnCNL6J6x\/giphy.gif\")
<\/p>\nThe characters<\/h5>\n
The clich\u00e9s<\/h5>\n
![\"troll](\"https:\/\/readerwitch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/troll-face.png\")
) but it gets close to that.<\/p>\nThe constant premonitions in The Chalk Man<\/em><\/h5>\n
Final thoughts on The Chalk Man<\/em> by C. J. Tudor<\/h4>\n