Book Review: ‘Black Chalk' by Christopher J. Yates (a Dark Academia staple?)

‘Black Chalk' by Christopher J. Yates got the coveted spot as our season 8 premiere for The Dark Academicals podcast. You can listen to our thoughts on why this book always finds its way onto Dark Academia lists, as well as how it holds up against our framework for the genre. The episode is streaming now!

Ah, dear. ‘Black Chalk’ was one of those books that I constantly see recommended as a Dark Academia read, as well as a Thriller. This always makes me wary because Thrillers generally aren't my bag. I really wish I could change that, but I find them generally quite tedious.

The summary for ‘Black Chalk' is as follows:

“One game. Six students. Five survivors.

It was only ever meant to be a game.

A game of consequences, of silly forfeits, childish dares. A game to be played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal, more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results.

Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round.”

This has a strong premise, that's for sure. Who can resist the lure of a game in a book? It's ‘The Hunger Games' effect (and you can come for me and say that “the game” has been around for years, blah blah, I know. But for my generation, “the game” will always be that one) and I for one am always intrigued by how authors reinvent the wheel.

Did Yates reinvent the wheel here? Sadly, I don't think so. The main issue being that we never really gain any understanding for what the game actually is. The whole set up is vague. We have the character of Jack blagging his way through his explaination of it to secure funding from the elusive “Games Soc”, and then it's never truly explained any further.

The thing is, and this is something we talk about on the podcast, there is nothing really stopping these characters from walking away. The stakes aren't high enough, the reward certainly isn't high enough, and the consequences they are forced to endure aren't that bad, not in the grand scheme of things.

I think, for me, there were too many missed opportunited within the plot. There were so many instances where the story could have been made much richer, or twistier, or darker, or more thrilling, and it just continues to flop.

It's very much a failure to launch at every attempt.

Another thing that I struggled with was the POV. We have a dual timeline situtation, one told from Jolyan's POV in the first person present day, and one told fourteen years prior as a third person perspective, which we find out is Jolyon writing the tale of what happened.

But then SPOILER ALERT we find out that Chad has been tinkering with Jolyon's writing, inserting his own paragraphs into it etc. And I think that as an idea this is great but in practice it created a confusing narrative to follow. It was never clear which character we had the main POV from, or it would switch aroung so suddenly I had whiplash.

There was just something off about the perspective in the retelling of events that didn't work for me.

There's a desperate need for deeper characterisation, and a better communication of motivations.

Jolyon is awful. Chad is awful. Mark is absolutely terrible. There are no likeable characters, and I actually find that kind of storytelling really interesting. I just wish there was some bigger twist to the whole thing that made plodding through 13hours of audiobook worth it.

Big set up, very little pay off.

It's not my favourite read of 2024, that's for sure.

Written by Sarah