The Name of the Star

Fantastic audio book.

The cover:

I like this one. It does represent Rory and some place of London.

The storyline:

Well, well. This was an interesting read. The story begins when Rory, the main character, goes to a boarding school in London, she settles there and meets new friends. Then, while she's settling, a murder happens, what's so special about it is that it has the same characteristics of the victims of the infamous Jack the Ripper. She starts to fall in love with this boy, Jerome, she met while the murders go on.

Then, on the fourth murder, she suddenly becomes the only witness the police has. After interrogating her, she thinks something weird is happening and that's when she realizes that she's seeing the ghost of the ripper, because the ripper is a ghost.

That's when she gets a new roommate whose later found to be a police woman protecting Rory. They become friends along with other two guys who explain things to her and tell her that she has a special gift.

The ripper shows up again and this time he wants Rory. He goes on threating her and the other two guys until she gives up and go with him. Later on, Boo (the new roommate) sends her “ghost” friend to save Rory. She saves Rory but ends up dead too.

At the end, Rory discovers something new and interesting about herself.

What I liked:

The story has some sense in it. I did like how Maureen included Jack the Ripper in this book and how she described every murder very vividly.
The main protagonist, Rory, was brave. And very smart at the beginning.
The writing style was good. Not great but good.
The characters were good.
What I disliked:

The pace in the story was killing me. At the beginning, I got very intrigued by the concept of the book, then the flow of the events was going slowly for me.
I hated how everything seemed easy to happen or to do in this story.
I hated seeing Rory becoming naïve.
The ending wasn't good at all. I expected more in it and thought maybe what didn't please me in the beginning and the middle of the book will do at the end, I was disappointed.
I was disappointed not to find the story horrifying. I was expecting it to scare me to death, unfortunately, it didn't :(.
Why I went for the audiobook eventually:

I started reading the e-book first, but when things started to bore me, I decided to get the audiobook, but guess what? Even the amazing English accents didn't cheer me up :s. So, thanks to the audiobook, I devoured the story whole even though I was going to stop reading it.

The characters:

Rory is the main protagonist. She's from the US but goes to a boarding school in England. She's smart and brave as well as loving and kind.

Jerome is the nice guy. He's been mostly kept out of story because he had no idea what was going on.

Jazza is Rory's first roommate and later best friend. She's kind, nice and smart too. That's probably why she and Rory became friends in the first place ^_^.

Boo is super cool. She has this funny and cool British accent that I love. She's been mysterious but later we found out that she's as nice and cool as Jazza, almost.

The other worth mentioning characters are: Stephen and Callum.

Conclusion:

This could've been a great book with the writing style and the characters. Unfortunately, it disappointed me a lot.

Will I be reading the sequel?

Definitely. The sequel has the potential to be way better and I'm having great expectations about it. Let's hope I won't be disappointed again!

A quick and entertaining read. Fairly exciting. I liked the world...I may continue with the series.