From Goodreads: In 1888, following her mother's sudden death, 17-year-old Arabella Sharp goes to live with her grandmother in a posh London neighborhood. At her grandmother's request, Abbie volunteers at Whitechapel Hospital, where she discovers a passion for helping the unfortunate women and children there. But within days, female patients begin turning up brutally murdered at the hands of Jack the Ripper.
My Rating: 3 hearts
Thoughts on the Novel: Based on the summary, I thought Amy Carol Reeves’ Ripper had the potential to be a novel I’d really enjoy. Unfortunately, even though Jack the Ripper was on the loose, I never got the urge to flip pages as fast as possible to see what would happen next. Personally, I attribute this to the plot (which ends with an open ending) and the characters.
The first half of the book sets up how Abbie begins working at Whitechapel Hospital and introduces you to some of the doctors working there. Nothing really exciting happens until patients start getting murdered and their bodies are found mutilated. While the police suspect Jack the Ripper is potentially a doctor due to the precise incisions made on the bodies of the dead, Reeves adds a bit of intrigue by having Abbie experience visions of the serial killer before he murders each of his victims. The historical element of the book though seems to be replaced by supernatural elements in the second half – a change which I wasn’t fond of. The air of mystery around who Jack the Ripper could be disappeared; and I just couldn’t muster up the energy to care about how the supernatural twists affected Abbie. Here’s also where the characterization came in.
There’s isn’t anything about Abbie that particularly stands out in my mind other than that she doesn’t want to be a demure lady and is attracted to two doctors who form part of a lacklustre love triangle. In fact, sometimes Abbie acted like a TSTL character, running all over the place and sneaking out at night without a care for her safety.
Ripper was released on April 8, 2012 by Flux.
In exchange for an honest review, this ARC was received from the publisher (Flux Books) for free via NetGalley.
