(Book Review):  'The Name of the Star' & 'The Madness Underneath' by Maureen Johnson  (Shades of London #1 & #2)

(Disclaimer:  This will contain spoilers!)


Aurora 'Rory' Deveaux is a teenage girl from Lousiana who moves to London to attend a boarding school.  There, she befriends her roommate, Jazza (and a couple more people along the way including a boy named Jerome ;D)  A series of murder is committed, mimicking the patterns of Jack the Ripper, except nobody can see the killer.  Somewhere along the way, Rory choked on her food and has a near death experience.  Once she wakes up, she can see ghosts.

The first book is straight up my alley.  I've never been interested in Jack the Ripper before, so I pretty much started the book on a blank slate.  Tbh, the book is fascinating as hell, and I really appreciate the fact that it is written from such a clever and witty perspective (think Princess Mia from The Princess Diaries).  The side characters are very interesting as well.

The second book starts a couple of weeks after where the first book ended.  Rory becomes progressively unlikeable.  I don't like the way she and Jazza hate on Charlotte (and Boo at the first book) for no apparent reason at all.  Rory seems to think that she patented the right to be traumatized as well, judging by the way she reacts to Charlotte's trauma. But still, I was excited about the whole Bedlam thing and wished the book focused more on that part.  We also see less of the lovely characters from the first book (namely Jazza, Alistair etc), which is kind of a bummer.  She also lies all the time, and is bad at it, and uses the victim card quite a number of times but then got angry when people pities her.  I mean I have nothing against lying, cause it's not like she can straight up tell the truth, but at least put some thoughts into it, girl..  The ending effectively killed the series for me.  By then, it already lost the essence of what made it special; the English boarding school, the ghost-seeing ability, the interesting ghosts etc.  I am also surprised neither Callum nor Boo blamed Rory for what happened in the end, because lbr, it was partially her fault -sideeye-


Verdicts:
Book 1:   4.2/5
Book 2:   2.9/5

(If you like this, you might like 'Abandon' by Meg Cabot.)