It is full of mistakes that an experienced writer should not be making any more.īoring, vanilla characters (all of them, except the villain, are like that BTW) and far too long and indulgent HP-fanfic-like boarding school minutiae aside, I think every YA author should know by now that creating a mean girl as a heroine's arch-nemesis is overdone. The Name of the Star is the author's 9th book (I think), but it often read like a debut.

What is not so great is Johnson's writing. Johnson does a respectable job incorporating the details of the crimes in her story without shying away from the gore - cut-off noses, bowels and heads - it is all here! Jack the Ripper's case is a truly fascinating and gruesome one. Rory soon discovers that she possesses an ability to see ghosts and is eager to assist the ghost police of London in its search for the serial killer. The strange thing is, she seems to be the only person able to see him. More murders happen in the neighborhood of Rory's school, and one day she crosses paths with the killer. This murderer appears to be mimicking Jack the Ripper - his first victim was sliced and diced in exactly the same manner as the Ripper's in 1888. On the day of her arrival to London she learns that there is a brutal murderer on the loose.

Her parents work in nearby Bristol and Rory is all set to live and study at a boarding school. The Name of the Star is a novel with a great premise but bogged down by a very mediocre writing.Īmerican teen Aurora (Rory) Deveaux is spending her senior year in London.

The name of the star by maureen johnson