My Review:Tension arises in the love affair of a young artist for whom nothing is permanent and his girlfriend, a teacher who believes that things are meant to last by the New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist.
This is a compelling love story between two very different young people: Collin, a disarming chalk artist who thinks nothing of erasing his dazzling work, and Nina, an idealistic teacher who struggles every day to make a lasting impact on her students. Wanting Collin to realize his full talent, Nina warily introduces him to her powerful father, who owns the most cutting edge virtual reality game company in the world. Add to this a brilliant but unstable pupil of Nina’s who is gaming obsessed, and you have contemporary life caught in the crosshairs by one of our most charming and socially astute literary voices.
This was one of the most unique and intriguing books I've ever read. I'm still not even sure what happened in it. The blurb is, mostly, correct but it doesn't tell you anywhere close to all of the facets in this book. Nor does the blurb detail these very important if stringent magical realism chapters of the book that take place as if you were playing a highly realized video game. It was an odd sensation and I didn't know where it was going at first; I may still not know where it is going. This book had a lot of parts and I didn't care about them equally and I'm not sure that all of them worked. What did work for me was Collin and Nina - not just together but apart - These characters were the kind I could read about all day because they were so well developed and complex. However, I didn't always love the chapters in the game - these were easy to skim even if highly (overly?) descriptive. The way the author tried to make various parts of the book come together fell a bit short to me but I still count this book as a success because it was weird and so different. Definitely going to check out this author's past and future works.
The Chalk Artist comes out later this month on June 13, 2017, and you can purchase HERE. This book intrigued me enough to want to read more from this author!
A stranger had been telling his secrets, publishing his dreams before he was born.
oh I do love well developed characters, they are so fantastic. I am glad to see you had a good time with this one.
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