The Name of the Star (The Shades of London) - Maureen Johnson
tl;dr I generally enjoyed this story. There were so many things about it that I loved, and yet combing all of them didn't make for a book I was ecstatic about. It was good, and interesting, but I didn't fall in love with it. 

Description Rory is a Louisiana Southern girl who moves to London when her parents are headed off to Bristol. Rory arrives in the east end of London right when a string of horrific murders has been committed - those murders mimicking the killings performed by Jack the Ripper in the 1800s. Just as with the original case, the police have no leads on who is committing those crimes. Then one night Rory sees the killer, and as it turns out she is the only one who can see him, and now he wants her. WHAT will she do? BUM BUM BUM. 


So yeah. There are some things I loved about this book. Rory, for one, is hilarious. My grandma is from Florida, and boy can she talk - just like Rory. So every time Rory gets on this long story telling tangent, I am quite amused. I love that she does it on purpose just to annoy people too. I find that absolutely hilarious. 



Perfect. And I love that it is set in London, as that is one of my favorite cities in the world (that I've been to). 



And so of course that is the perfect setting for a Jack the Ripper copycat. Any other place in the world and it just wouldn't have been right. Not that I have read a story where a Ripper copycat was murdering people in like, Alabama or something. But still. I wouldn't put it past an author. 


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Anyways. I liked Jazza, but I felt like we didn't get to know her very much. Which was a bit disappointing, and hopefully she'll be explored a bit more in the next book. Don't get me wrong, what we did get to know of her I loved. But its like she was a place filler until Boo showed up, and I like her much more than Boo. 



So yeah. The supernatural element of this book was interesting, but I thought it would've been much more creepy/scary had Jack the Ripper been human. I think I would've been a lot more invested in the story and the outcome had it not ended up being ghosts. I mean, it was interesting and a pretty good ending, but I was left just feeling:


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I'll give the next book a go, especially since its only 290 pages (or so), but I'm not sure if it'll make me perk up about the overall story and enjoy it more. 


Long story short, if you're looking for something a little different (and haven't read ghost stories lately), give it a go.