Ripper: Review

Title: Ripper
Author: Amy Carol Reeves
Release Date: April 2012
Published By: Flux
Pages: 340
Goodreads Rating: 3.54 stars

Review: In 1888, after her mother's sudden death, Abbie lives with her grandmother in London and volunteers at a local hospital, but as bodies murdered at the hands of Jack the Ripper show up, she comes to a realization. She and the Ripper are connected through her visions, leading her on a perilous hunt for the killer where she uncovers a mysterious brotherhood that affects not just London but all of mankind.

I had high hopes for RIPPER, but unfortunately I was disappointed, largely because of the characters. Abbie had a lot of potential to be an interesting character, but instead she came across as rather flat and wooden. There just wasn't anything that particularly stood out in her personality, making her a generic "I don't want to be a lady" female protagonist in historical fiction. I just couldn't care about her enough to be much affected by the twists and turns nor the love triangle she found herself swept up in.

Speaking of these twists and turns, I do have to say that there were places where the story became rather suspenseful. However, these were in contrast to other areas where the suspense was just not there. There were supernatural twists that didn't excite me, perhaps because I didn't feel that the historical and paranormal aspects meshed well enough. It felt almost like the element of her visions was just thrown in there.

I also thought that a good deal of the plot was rather cliche. The idea of there being more to Jack the Ripper than just a serial killer was interesting, but as I said, Abbie was generic and her love triangle was woefully predictable. There was just wasn't enough to make it unique, and the new aspect of the brotherhood and all that didn't really balance out the flaws.

All in all, RIPPER had a great deal of potential but didn't measure up. The protagonist just came across as too dull to me, and the suspense was not as high as it could have been. The melding of the two genres (historical and paranormal) wasn't that smooth either, and overall I felt a bit disappointed with this book.