Cover Me: You may disagree, but I find this cover ho-hum. The Jack the Ripper feel is evident with the shadowy character in the top hat, but it doesn’t “wow” me as some of the covers nowadays. There isn’t anything that stands out to make me hate it, even though I’m not a fan of the title, but there is nothing to draw me in either. It was the book jacket (or the small synopsis for us Nook users, now called by me “Nookers” with the same connotation as “hookers”) which was the thing that landed me hook, line, and sinker.
Concept: Right after Rory arrives in England for school, some wacko starts mimicking the Jack the Ripper killings. He uses the same locations, same dates, and same murderous styles as the ones from 1888. This was such a cool concept, I couldn’t wait to start this book. It was the one I used as the reward for finishing my own WIP and it kept me working through some long nights. Who isn’t totally intrigued by Jack the Ripper. (Which is something the author hits on in the book quite well with funny spoofs and television sensationalism.) To say my expectations were high is an understatement.
The Peeps: Aurora, known as Rory, is a character I was able to read through but I didn’t connect well with her. She didn’t have the strongest voice I’ve read lately and fell flat in some areas. There were a lot of surrounding characters as well, which gave the impression of “character soup.” There were the set of classmates, the ghost-busting crew, and the different ghost friends. Uh, yeah, I said ghosts. None of them were noteworthy. The one who stuck out the most to me was the character quoting the Smith’s songs because I thought it was such an odd reference, like maybe I wasn’t as old as I thought if the kids today were still listening to the Smiths. But no, it was the kid who died in the 80’s who was channeling Morrisey.
The Ending (spoiler alert!): My saddest moment was when I realized the murderer was a ghost. All real fear vanished, which was probably the opposite of what the author wanted. I wasn’t into the part about being able to see dead people. From the beginning, the book reminded me a lot of Deception with its boarding school environment and ability to channel the dead. Major differences, Deception not trying to sell me Jack the Ripper and I liked the main character more. In this story, I found myself skimming several times through areas of description trying to find some action.
A major thing I didn’t like was the point of view shift to omniscient to give another scene from the story. It kinda feels like cheating. Ninety percent of the book is from Rory’s point of view until we need some other little details like finding a body, recovering some surveillance tapes, building suspense with a news network, and scaring the public with a message. It was weird to jump a few times and then go back to first person like nothing had happened.
Overall, the book was good, but not the best. Maybe I had too high of expectations. Or maybe with my growing collections of YA’s read, I expect more. What I did learn was by using a well-known character like Jack the Ripper to draw a reader in, you also bring a high bar. If you don’t deliver with the known figure, the character could be the thing that kills the potential of the novel.
What I Cooked Up: I’d like to call this Death by Cupcake. Here we have an innocent vanilla cupcake with a sweet dollop of vanilla buttercream. That is before the sharp knife cookie of the Ripper starts to slice away. The strawberry guts are punctured and pulled out in honor of our killer.
I want to _____ that cupcake/cookie combo in my _____.
(I might be drunk).
Ooohhh, I love Mad Libs. And I’m going to take that as a compliment.
AMAZING! I love the baking idea – multimedia reviewing lol!
Please don’t fill in the blanks spinster. My imagination is going wild.