Ghosts and Jack the Ripper.

[matt_doyle]

Latest read: The Name of the Star, by Maureen Johnson.  A teenage transfer student gains the ability to see ghosts and investigates a modern-day copycat of Jack the Ripper.  The concept is intriguing and well-executed, and the book combines standard YA tropes with supernatural suspense and murder mystery stuff.  But the ending leaves things hanging, and the pacing and tone are terribly uneven -- the first half of the book is a YA story with subtextual ghosts, almost magic realism.  The second half is a cool crimebusting mystery-suspense action, with most of the characters and plot threads from the first half all but ignored.  While it's still a good book, unless it's the start to a series, it introduces too many extraneous elements, and really needed an editor to chop and restructure.

Still, even if it was a hodgepodge, it was enjoyable throughout, whatever it was trying to be at the moment.

Comments

[aphrodite_mine]

I can't quite get enthused about her writing, but Maureen Johnson is one of the most delightful and smart and vocal people on the internet. The sequel to NotS comes out soonish, I think?

[matt_doyle]

Oooh, a sequel. Excellent. Yeah, I've seen her around online and always liked what she had to say, so I disliked having to give this book such a mixed review... but the text, it is what it is.