Stalking Jack the Ripper? More like I want to run!

So I made myself finish “Stalking Jack the Ripper,” by Kerri Maniscalco and I was underwhelmed honestly. It’s a shame because the book had things I would like, mystery, a strong heroine and Victorian England. Unfortunately a hundred plus pages in, I was getting bored. “Stalking Jack The Ripper,” is the first in a 4 book series with one standalone book. Then again I’m not the target audience for this book. It’s a young adult series which is a genre I’ve grown out of. There are some young adult books I will read but the plot and the writing has to be really spectacular for me to enjoy it. I thought I would get it from this book but sadly I did not. You’ll either enjoy or dislike this series or like it but forget about it later.

Pros

As I said before, the book had a great idea for a plot. Audrey Rose Wadsworth wants more for herself than wearing gowns and husband searching, she wants to follow in her uncle’s footsteps and be in the medical profession. When Jack the Ripper makes his rounds Audrey and her uncles mischievous assistant Thomas Cresswell wants to find out who Jack the Ripper is especially since he murdered a servant that worked for their family. Another plus is at least I did get “Stalking Jack The Ripper,” as well as 2 of the other books in the series from the library so there was no money wasted.

Cons

Unfortunately there were many of them which caused this book to fall flat. The characters weren’t very interesting and didn’t make me want to know more about them. Audrey kept going on about “men thinking she was fragile, weak etc” and the same similar statements. This constant complaining made me think, “Yes I get it! You’re a woman in 1880s Victorian England where women didn’t have many opportunities!” The book would have benefitted by showing rather than telling. The pacing of the story dragged on and it felt like barely anything was happening. I was so relieved when I saw a reviewer on Amazon felt the same way I did. I also figured out who the murderer was early on and when I found out I was right it was a letdown, though to give credit where it was due I didn’t figure out the motive. Though the motive of why this person was Jack the Ripper turned into a weird Frankenstein like plot which had me shaking my head. I know a book like this will be farfetched, but the Frankenstein like plot took it to a whole new level of being farfetched.

Overall

I at least didn’t waste money on this. Maybe if I was a young adult I would have enjoyed this book. Maybe if a different writer wrote this and made the characters more likeable I would have enjoyed this more. Just because a book is a bestseller doesn’t mean it’s worth the hype. If you the reader want to give this book a chance, have at it! Maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did, or maybe you won’t.