Some things are so bad that once you've been through them, you don't have to explain your reasons to anyone.

amazing. I found this book to be completely all consuming. It sucked me in with it's easy characters and beautiful setting. And quickly the thrill and fear of the murders and terror of what was happening grabbed me and I just couldn't put it down.

I'm so glad there's a book 2. I'm not ready to let Rory, Callum, Stephen or Boo go! ( )

This first installment of The Shades Of London Trilogy was a wonderful and emotionally suspenseful new twist on the traditional Jack-The-Ripper Lore and Secret Supernatural-Detective-Agents trope in general. The MC, Rory, is freshly arrived in London to live at a Boarding school away from her home in the American South and has a near death experience that leaves her with a unique and quite extraordinary ability.
Drawn into the Ripper-Fan insanity that has gripped London since her arrival, Rory soon discovers that she is the only witness to the serial murderer's identity, because he’s already dead! Now she is his next _target, because she is the only one who can see him and he is desperate for something he knows she has.
Overall I really enjoyed the characters, their interactions, and seeing the thought process of our protagonist. The story starts out being the typical teen-girl-in-a-new-town-all-alone trope, but soon turns into a beautifully written, pulse pounding young adult story with a deep plot that clearly means to be a multi-book series full of dark mysteries and sarcastic and lovingly respectful insults thrown between the characters in their realistic dialog. While the ending was still a good cliffhanger, it still settles matters in a way that make it possible to be a good stand-alone as well; Although I personally would recommend reading the other two books in the trilogy as they are also amazing and bring the plot to whole new heights, IMO. ( )

Another audio book I got from the 2019 Sync Audiobook YA Summer reading program. Nicely narrated by Nicola Barber. As Jack-the-Ripper stories go this was a fun one. :-) ( )

So, yeah, where's the second book now? I need it like a grindylow needs water! ( )

Guilty pleasure, but such a good one.

Like Mallory Towers meets Poe meets Judy Blume. ( )

Such a good book! I loved the world building and that characters. Another book series that was so addicted to read. i NEED THE SEQUEL NOW :) ( )

Such a good book! I loved the world building and that characters. Another book series that was so addicted to read. i NEED THE SEQUEL NOW :) ( )

Http://lbrychic.blogspot.com

This was the book for our last Teen book club for the school year at my library. My coworker basically shoves it at me and says "You'll enjoy it!" I was iffy about it at the time but she was right I read this over the span of several hours over two days. Definitely Young Adult, but enjoyed it. Slightly different than most stories I've read. Page turner, Could hardly put it down.

When Rory's parents get jobs in England, Rory chooses to go to a boarding school several hours away from where her parents. Rory ends up going there first because a Hurricane has come through Louisiana and screws up flight schedules.
When she arrives, she finds out there was a murder nearby. News gets out that it was done just like Jack the Ripper in the 1800s. Is there an copycat? Will more murders happen?
Something happens to Rory during a mealtime with her classmates/friends. She develops an odd rare ability and ends up with a small group who help her with this ability. First in a series. ( )

I was pleasantly surprised by this.

I knew next to nothing going into this novel but really enjoyed the characters, humor, and mystery throughout.

I was reminded a bit of the Diviner series by Libba Bray. ( )

3.5 Stars

Ups and downs with this book. At times it was thrilling and super interesting. Other times it dragged and dragged. Surprise ghosts or ghost seeing abilities never go over that well with me, and so this is not going to be a fave.

I'm starting to think that Maureen Johnson and I aren't going to make it. I read [b:Truly Devious|29589074|Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1)|Maureen Johnson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498501619s/29589074.jpg|49916452] last month and I wasn't much of a fan. I had heard so many good things about this series, so I decided to jump in and see if I would like it better-- meh. I guess I liked it a little better (because we DID get a pay-off in this one!!), but I went through major ups and downs while reading it.

In this book, we have Rory, a girl from Louisiana who moves to London and begins attending a boarding school. Just as she arrives, copycat Jack the Ripper crimes start happening, throwing all of London into a panic and a party?? It kind of seemed like more people were excited about women getting brutally killed than they were horrified?? There were all these people buying "I survived" and Jack memorabilia and throwing Ripper parties. Basically, the vibe in London in this book was not appropriate.

Rory gets caught up in the crimes by accidentally having a conversation with the killer-- and that's really all the synopsis goes into. This is a rather old book, so I am going to vaguely talk about what happens after the main twist-- so just be aware of that if you haven't read this book and want to avoid ALL spoilers.

At this point, Rory finds out that she "sees dead people". She gets a police escort named Boo (real name Bhuvana Chodhari). Maybe I'm off on this, but dealing with ghosts and having a person named Boo--- that just feels lazy to me?? Anyway, Boo is there to keep Rory safe because Boo works with a special ghost division of the police force. It's basically 3 people who can see ghosts and are sent out when ghosts act up.

Despite her lazy name, Boo ended up being the only character I liked. She was fun in a typical teenager kind of way and I liked the way her personality showed through even when she was trying to be undercover. The roommate, a girl named Jazza, and the love interest (Jerome), didn't wow me in any way. It was nice that they were welcoming to Rory, but they didn't NEED to be in the book.

And that's basically my whole opinion of the book. I liked it at times-- found it exciting and interesting, but then other times it dragged and dragged. It took me a week just to muster up enough energy to get through the middle part. That may be a little bit my fault. I don't like the whole SURPRISE, GHOSTS! thing. It worked a little better in this book, especially towards the end, but usually a surprise ghost element isn't a good thing in a book for me. I need warning.

The ending was interesting and it has me curious about the second book. It ends with a twist (and it has actual conclusions, unlike Truly, Devious), so I'm thinking about seeing where that goes. It's not that I think this author isn't a good writer-- I just think her stories maybe aren't the best fit for me.

OVERALL: I had ups and downs with this book-- thrilled at times, but so bored at others. While I eventually came around to the twist, I just don't like ghosts thrown in without knowing about it in advance. I don't really recommend this book, but if you like true-crime and supernatural, this is probably worth a try for you.

My Blog:
Pink Polka Dot Books
( )

3.5 Stars ( )

More like 3.5. The school part of the book and the ghost part of the book didn't feel well integrated but I liked them apart from each other. Most of the story is told from Rory's pov and I didn't feel that the random third-person pov bits helped the story along and actually made the book feel more disjointed. I liked Rory but wasn't really invested in her and didn't find her voice to be very convincing. I'll be reading the next 2 books, mostly because I'm a fan of MJ, but I'll probably borrow from the library. ( )

I really kind of want to give this one a 4.5, but if I have to choose, it will always lean more five than four. I love all the delving into a new culture. I like how this novel is set up, and how it slowly spools out.

I laughed so hard when we learned of Alistair (the ONE THING I did not predict in this book), but not nearly as hard as when I wrote someone off as ShadowHunter and realized I was having a cross-canon moment with Cassandra Clare in Miss Johnson's book.

If you love Jack the Ripper, and sci-fi, and young adult, and mysteries that are quite mysterious, you should definitely give it a try. It was a wonderfully spooky, uncertain charm, and I can not wait until book two is in my hands. ( )

Rory has just arrived in London from the U.S. to spend a year at a boarding school. Right after she arrives, a string of murders start occurring in London, eerily imitating almost exactly the infamous Jack the Ripper murders that happened more than one hundred years ago. Rory does the thing you never want to do... she sees a suspect and he knows that she sees him. ( )

About 100 pages from the end of this, I looked up the publication date of the sequel. 2013-no fair! At least this is the first I've read of Maureen Johnson's books, and there are others out there, so that's some consolation.

The characters were appealing, especially Rory, our protagonist,and the author drew me around corners and surprised me several times throughout the book. I ended up blowing through the last half of it tonight, the plot was so engaging.

I will be recommending this like crazy at the library. ( )

I think about this series all the time since reading it 2 years ago. I loved the amount of spookiness. Not scary but still very mysterious and kept me on the edge of my seat. I loved the characters and the pace of all 3 books. It even made me curious about the real jack the ripper story which I had never even thought about before. ( )

( )

For some reason, I thought this book was steampunky -- wrong, but who cares? Great jack-the-ripper in modern day teen adventure mystery story. Is that coherent? Sorry. It was was great -- nice action, unexpected story and interesting characters. ( )

Oh, this was everything I hoped it would be and more. Can't wait to get my hands on the next one. ( )

Like all of Maureen J.'s books, this was a delightful and catching read. She's not particularly sparing with words, but the result is vivid scene setting. I got the feeling of a cozy thriller from this. Is that a thing? That should be a thing. ( )

Though not a fan of paranormal anything, I did like the concept here. The writing is okay, and it is definitely funny. I liked the characters, even if they were a bit two-dimensional. A little cliched, a little unrealistic, and the whole southern debutante in London boarding school thing irked me, especially since I listened to it AND the reader reads in EVERY accent! Going from southern bell twang to posh english, to city cockney english kind of made my head spin. Overall, entertaining, and for teens who dig ghost and suspense, this one passes. ( )

Though not a fan of paranormal anything, I did like the concept here. The writing is okay, and it is definitely funny. I liked the characters, even if they were a bit two-dimensional. A little cliched, a little unrealistic, and the whole southern debutante in London boarding school thing irked me, especially since I listened to it AND the reader reads in EVERY accent! Going from southern bell twang to posh english, to city cockney english kind of made my head spin. Overall, entertaining, and for teens who dig ghost and suspense, this one passes. ( )

I wish you could do half stars, because if I was really rating this, it would be like a 3.7ish. I liked it, I didn't love it. I think my expectations were just a little off, so I felt slightly disappointed. I like serial killers. Not in a creepy, write psychopaths letters and fangirl visit them in jail kind of way; but in the Criminal Minds is one of my favorite shows, and I find the situations, behavior and psychology behind what makes these people do what they do kind of way. Plus, I like creepy things, so maybe I'm a little nuts. I also love a good ghost story, am a fan of boarding school novels, and like southern protagonists, you would think from the description this would be my favorite book ever. I did enjoy it a lot. Its a very quick read, well written, I liked the main character, Rory, some of the side characters were interesting, and Jack the Ripper fascinates me. That's really why I picked it up. The problem for me was that Ripper isn't quite what you think. I can't really say more without giving away spoilers and I don't know how to do the tag thing. I enjoyed it, I didn't love it, but I would still recommend it. ( )

This is more of a 2.5 stars for me. The cover was really misleading, making it look like a historical fiction novel when it was a contemporary YA with paranormal elements (I know this isn't the author's fault, but it bothered me). The main character is super! excited! to be going to boarding school in England, lacking any of the trepidation, homesickness, or disorientation that many people feel while studying abroad. It didn't seem genuine to me. The last third of the book really got going, though, and for me the ending saved it. I might read the next in the series. ( )

I love just about everything Maureen Johnson has written her characters are great and I love her stories. Her series tend to be quite different from each other but they are all good in their own right. Maureen Johnson is not only a great writer but she is also amazing on Twitter I highly recommend following her. ( )