by Maureen Johnson
This book was so much fun! Having only read one of Johnson’s books before, and not being that impressed with it, I was a little wary of this, but I’m so glad I picked it up. It’s about a girl (Aurora, but she goes by Rory) who moves from Louisiana to London to go to school while her parents are teaching in Bristol for a year, so she is entirely on her own in a very different world, but that’s just the beginning of the fun.
Shortly after she arrives, someone starts recreating the murders of Jack the Ripper. The good news is that everyone knows when and approximately where the next murder will be, but it still puts everybody on edge, especially when a body is found in the courtyard of Rory’s new school. Classes are shortened so teachers can get home before dark and students aren’t allowed to go off campus and they have to sign in and out whenever they go from one school building to another.
Then Rory starts seeing people that no one else can see. Often these people are dressed a little out of fashion and it takes Rory a while to figure out (actually be told) that the people she’s seeing are ghosts. Throw a ruthless serial killer into the mix, not to mention the usual mix of teenage hormones and confusion, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that Rory is having a really bad year.
On the other hand, as with all books about teenagers, it’s also the year that Rory truly finds herself. An accident completely redirects the entire course of her life and suddenly she becomes someone very different from most people. She is seeing and experiencing things that she simply cannot tell most people, including her parents, if she wants to avoid getting locked up in a mental institution.
I think the strongest part of this book is the characters. Rory gets targeted by the new Jack the Ripper, but she never really acts like a victim. Yes she’s scared, and yes she spends a certain amount of her time cowering in her dorm, but that’s far from the only thing she does. She takes steps to find out what’s going on so she can protect herself and her friends and she doesn’t do nearly as much whining as you would expect from a teenager in her situation.
My favorite character is Jo, a ghost who is the epitome of the British stiff upper lip. She continues to protect her own little corner of the world from the afterlife and has an attitude of, as Rory puts it, literally never say die. She is, without a doubt, the strongest character in this book (possibly in any book) and I totally want to be her when I grow up … just without the haunting part.
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