Super Star

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
* Arc read via Around The World ARC Tours
* Book will be released on September 29, 2011

This is a super star of a book, a definite 4 gnomes and a gnome hat out of 5 gnomes.  It has a main character who’s full of surprises and quite the interesting new take on Jack the Ripper.  

Aurora aka Rory is going to boarding school for a year in London while her parents teach in a different town.  Everything seems normal at first but her first day in London is also the same day that a killer mimicking Jack the Ripper strikes again.  

Seeing Rory trying to fit in at school and seeing the friends she makes is fun since she’s the only American at the school.  This means that there’s plenty of cultural differences and misunderstandings to be had.  I like how she uses her Southern charm to mess with people.  She becomes fast friends with her room mate Jazza and she finds out that her classes are a lot harder then she thought they’d be.  

The humor and the voice of the book is great and really draws you into the story.  When you add in the mystery of the new Jack the Ripper and a dash of paranormal goodness, it makes for a great story.  

There’s the hint that there may be a love triangle in later books.  She meets a guy at school and they do get along very well.  He’s a bit obsessed with Jack the Ripper, seems to know everything about the case and theories about who did it.  Rory may have more in common with a new guy that she meets.  I guess it all depends on how Rory handles the new paranormal part of her life.

I wasn’t sure what to think about this book at first but then all the pieces come together.  This book has a spooky atmosphere throughout because of the interludes before some of the chapters about the murders.  There’s also a giant dose of paranoia too because everyone knows the dates that the killer will strike if he follows the original Jack the Ripper’s schedule.  This is no ordinary killer though.

Rory has new skills that are hard to believe but may be the only way to catch the killer.  The new people she meets are dysfunctional but also extremely good at what they do.  I really want to know more about the group and especially whoever the big bosses are.  

The ending was so so good and leaves some major questions about Rory’s future.  I can’t wait to see what happens next in this mysterious and spooky series.

Sentence Sneak Peek - The Name of the Star

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

The first sentence from each chapter of The Name of the Star, it's a mini summary of what you can expect to read.

* All first sentences are from an ARC I read via Around The World ARC Tours
* Book will be released on September 29, 2011
* Spoilers are highlighted like this :)

“THE EYES OF LONDON WERE WATCHING CLAIRE JENKINS.”

“IF YOU LIVE AROUND NEW ORLEANS AND THEY THINK a hurricane might be coming, all hell brakes loose.”

“I WAS IN A FOYER PANELED IN DARK WOOD WITH A mosaic floor.”

“SO,” CHARLOTTE CHIRPED, AS I STUMBLED AND SLID over the cobblestones, “where are you from.?”

“I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING TO FIND TWO STRANGERS in my room—one mom-looking type, and the other a girl with long, honey-blond hair wearing a sensible gray cashmere sweater and a pair of jeans.”

“LIFE AT WEXFORD BEGAN PROMPTLY AT SIX THE NEXT morning, when Jazza’s alarm went off seconds before mine.”

“THE SAN WAS THE SANATORIUM—BASICALLY, THE nurse’s office.”

“THE NEXT DAY, IT RAINED.”

“WHEN YOU LIVE AT SCHOOL, YOU GET CLOSE TO people really quickly.”

“IT DIDN’T TAKE A GREAT DEAL OF INSIGHT TO KNOW that Jazza was not going to want to go to a crime scene that evening.”

“Veronica Atkins sat at her desk in her top floor flat, overlooking the Flowers and Archers.”

“THE AUTUMN OF 1888 WAS KNOWN AS THE AUTUMN of Terror.”

“THE POLICE ENCOURAGE LONDONERS TO TAKE EXTRA caution this evening.”

“IT HAD TURNED INTO A CRISP, PERFECT AUTUMN night.”

“THE NEXT MORNING STARTED WAY TOO EARLY, WITH someone pounding wildly at our door.”

“JAZZA WAS PACING OUR ROOM WHEN I RETURNED.”

“THE WHITE TENT WAS THERE ALL WEEKEND, AS WAS the press.”

“THE BBC IS USED TO DEALING WITH FREAKS, CRANKS, and psychos.”

“THE POLICE PACKED UP BY MONDAY MORNING, AND the press left as soon as the white tent came down.”

“THE NEXT MORNING, WE TOOK A FINAL LOOK AT OUR room as it was before we headed off to breakfast.”

“GATORS ARE JUST SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT where I come from.”

“THE NEXT MORNING, I HEADED OFF TO ART HISTORY with Boo at my side.”

“SO I GOT TO RIDE IN A LONDON POLICE CAR.”

“AT THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR AT THE UNIVERSITY where my parents teach, you can see parakeets in the trees.”

“JEROME DIDN’T FORGET.”

“CLEARLY, JEROME AND I HAD A COMPLICATED THING going on.”

“GHOSTS, ACCORDING TO THE INTERNET:
     Souls, spooks, shades, poltergeists, reverants.”

“DAMN, IT FELT GOOD TO BE A RIPPEROLOGIST.”

“STEPHEN WAS DRIVING WITH A GRIM, FIXED INTENSITY.”

“IT WAS ALMOST THREE IN THE MORNING WHEN STEPHEN dropped me off at Wexford, but there were lots of lights on in the windows.”

“ON SUNDAY, I WOKE AROUND FIVE IN THE MORNING.”

“WE WERE IN A SMALL SQUARE OUTSIDE OF A CHURCH.”

“AGAIN, I WOKE UP AROUND FIVE IN THE MORNING.”

“IT WAS A LONG NIGHT, AND I WASN’T SURE WHAT WAS worse—the terror I was just managing to keep at bay or the boredom.”

“A LONG SILENCE GREETED THIS ANNOUNCEMENT.”

“ONE THING ABOUT STEPHEN—HE COULD REALLY drive.”

“IN 1888, MILLER’S COURT WAS A DARK OFFSHOOT OF Dorset Street, known as “the worst street in London.”

“WE WERE SITTING IN THE POLICE CAR ACROSS THE street from Regis House.”

“THE SPIRAL EMERGENCY STAIRS , MADE AROUND 1890, hadn’t been improved since then.”

“THERE WAS A SOUND FROM THE STEPS, ONE SMALL groan from Stephen as he heard me say these words.”

“AT HEALING ANGEL MINISTRIES, COUSIN DIANE reads people’s auras.”

“WHEN I WOKE AGAIN, IT WAS DAYLIGHT.”

“SO MY UNCLE WILL HAS THESE EIGHT FREEZERS UP IN his spare bedroom.”