Upstream Reviews - Chalk, by NR LaPoint

Michael Gallagher says,

It’s after this pulse-pounding opening that LaPoint’s wonderful weirdness really kicks in.

In a previous review, Declan Finn described the book as “Alice in Wonderland if the rabbit hole went all the way down to hell.”

While it seemed hyperbolic to me at the time, LaPoint’s work lives up to the claim.

And

Chalk is something to be experienced, especially by younger teen readers. Kids eager to grow up are targeted by major publishers who often introduce adult levels of violence and sexuality to an audience ill prepared for them. And the slime is even dripping down into the Middle Grade genre. A trip to your library’s Children’s or Young Adult section will have a wide variety of hagiographies for corrupt politicians like Joey (allegedly) by First Lady Jill Biden, a plethora of titles uncritically lauding the virtues of transgenderism such as Meredith Russo’s If I Was Your Girl or He’s My Mom! by Sarah Savage, and ultraviolent vile garbage like Adam Rapp’s The Children and the Wolves. It is a cadre of the entertainment industry which can be as morally bankrupt as Hollywood, but twice as pernicious, since its agenda is often not as obvious when hidden within the printed page.

Complete review: https://upstreamreviews.substack.com/p/chalk

Declan Finn says:

The pace of this book is surprisingly, blisteringly fast. The threats are nearly omnipresent. This fantasy also has elements of a mystery, where we're given all the clues but everyone is too busy running for their lives to figure it out, like a Mickey Spillane or a John Dickson Carr. There's one new threat after another, and they stop just long enough for our heroes to figure out how to get past the next obstacle ... which usually leads to yet another running shootout, only with lightsabers.

And there's one conflict that feels very much like Dante's Inferno, but if he had shotguns. If one were to properly describe this book, it starts as Alice in Wonderland with guns, and ends in a battle that Edgar Rice Burroughs or Tolkien would have been happy to have written, complete with Knights, war unicorns, lightsaber, a Kaiju battle, and a living Lovecraft horror the size of a building.

Full Review: https://upstreamreviews.substack.com/p/review-chalk-by-nr-lapoint

Find the book on Spotlight: https://spotlightonindie.com/books/chalk