Reading Teen

This may be hard to believe, but this is my first Maureen Johnson book. I've stalked her on Twitter for a long time, and she is a riot, to say the least, so I was excited to see how that translated into her writing. I probably didn't pick the best example of her comic side, but I definitely enjoyed The Name of the Star.....well, as much as anyone CAN enjoy a book about a guy that's killing people.It feels wrong to be fascinated by Jack the Ripper, a man who brutally murdered at least four women in 1888, but that's exactly what's happened to the town that Rory has moved to, and I found myself swept up in the Ripper frenzy right along with them. This book was creepy, on multiple levels. I definitely recommend reading or listening to this at night, to get the full effect. There were a lot of interesting facts, and quite a few gory details, that I had never heard about Jack the Ripper in the story. Maureen did a good job interweaving all these details into the plot, and not making the jump from present to past choppy. I loved that not everything is what it seems.I liked Rory a lot. She was fun-loving and adventurous, but at the same time just trying find her place in this new world she's found herself in. Not only London, but also her part in this new Ripper mystery. The romance was cute, but not anything spectacular. I felt like her relationship with Jerome was sweet, but very surface. I'll be surprised if they stay together in the future books in the series, and I'm ok with that. The only thing that bothered me about Rory was that there are a few hints that are dropped in the story about the killer and the mystery, that are pretty obvious to us as readers, but that Rory is oblivious to. This makes her come across as.....not quite as intelligent as I would have liked.Overall, though, I thought this was an exciting and suspenseful book that I'm happy that I got a chance to listen to.Book Doppelgangers: The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting, Deception by Lee Nichols, Clarity by Kim Harrington Content: Sexual Content: Mild Profanity: Moderate Violence: Heavy Other Notables: Legal Drinking (in England) For more details, check out The Name of the Star on ParentalBookReviews.com-AndyeReadingteen.net