Review: The Taking of Annie Thorne by CJ Tudor

RATING: 8/10

SYNOPSIS

The new spine-tingling, sinister thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Chalk Man.

One night, Annie went missing. Disappeared from her own bed. There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst. And then, miraculously, after forty-eight hours, she came back. But she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say what had happened to her. Something happened to my sister. I can’t explain what. I just know that when she came back, she wasn’t the same. She wasn’t my Annie. I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, that sometimes I was scared to death of my own little sister.

REVIEW

“People say time is a great healer. They’re wrong. Time is simply a great eraser. It rolls on and on regardless, eroding out memories, chipping away at those great big boulders of misery until there’s nothing left but sharp little fragments, still painful but small enough to bear.”

The Chalk Man is just OKAY for me. But The Taking of Annie Thorne is way better than Tudor’s debut. This book, to me, definitely fortifies her status as a mystery/thriller writer.

The book opens with a very horrific scene and I just cant get the scene out of my head when I’m reading this book. After reading the first few pages of this book, I already have a strong feeling that this book is darker and creepier than The Chalk Man. And it really is, also with a supernatural element which is absent in the Chalk Man.

Again, there’s a Stephen King vibes in this book and I’m not sure whether its just me but there’s a point in this book where it reminds me a little of King’s Pet Sematary. But of course, the whole plot and story is rather original and more complex (if compared to The Chalk Man). It revolves heavily on the theme of school bullying and the aftermath of it, either towards the victims or the perpetrators. And sometimes, in a case of bully, the line between a victim and a perpetrator is usually blurred. As usual, there are plot twists throughout the story and unlike those in The Chalk Man, the plot twists here managed to catch me by surprise. Finally, I have the “OH I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!” feel when I read this book. And because of this, The Taking of Annie Thorne deserves a 8/10 star rating from me. Can’t wait to get myself a copy of The Other People and dive into it!