Review Detail

Except for the whole arriving in London just for the killing spree of the century, Rory's pretty much living the life any Anglophile would die for - living it up in a posh boarding school, a cool roommate, and the possibility of having her head chopped off by the Ripper himself.

Ahem. Yes, I'd take it all except for the last part.

Though I follow her religiously on Twitter, this was the first of Maureen Johnson's books I actually finished (started Suite Scarlett back in senior year, but you know how well that went) and I was absolutely hooked from start to finish. There was a bit of a lag during the whole information dumps about boarding school, but then again I know absolutely nothing about the British education system, so let's take that as a learning experience, shall we?

In any case, there's loads of cool accented words and slang (personal favorite: "I survived November 9th and All I Got was This Bloody T-Shirt"...I'm a future English major, I've got to love irony), rides on the Tube and, of course, Ripper-mania to keep the action going right up to the last page. And even after that, I went through the acknowledgments, admired the nice author photo on the flap, and drummed my fingers against the cover a few times waiting for a sequel to magically appear in my hands.

It didn't. Ah, well, you can't blame a girl for trying.

What I found particularly awesome about the book was how it followed along with the real Ripper's crimes...and believe me, I would know. (To make a long story short, some psychology classes seem to enjoy freaking their students out for life about venturing out at night...oh, and being a female in any major city? Watch out for your neck, my pretty.)

To sum it up for whoever didn't bother to read everything up there:

Anglophile + interested about serial killers (just as long as you're not one) = have a go with The Name of the Star. You won't regret it.