The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson: Happy Thanksgiving!

The Name of the Star 

by 

Maureen Johnson

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have come to the conclusion that YA ghost stories aren’t actually ghost stories. They are in fact contemporaries where the author felt the need to add in some sort of token plot. But they really just wanted to write some squishy story about a girl who moves to England. 

You Tried 

Don’t get me wrong this is probably one of the more interesting ghost stories I’ve read (Which I’ve been educating myself on after I did my Halloween Top Ten Tuesday) But none of these things seem to be, well, actually good. I have yet to be impressed by any of them as a matter of fact. The plots are unevenly paced and thrust aside in order to make room for vaguely disturbing romances and the characters have less sense than the average pigeon.

The Name of the Star wasn’t really an exception. I picked this out for my Top Ten Tuesday because, well it was in England. With the ghost of Jack the Ripper haunting the streets.   

Characters

Rory Deveaux: Let’s see what happens when a girl from Louisiana shows up in London. Basically a lot of ‘London’ gushing while not actually seeming to know a lot about it.  She kind of pounced on anything that was even remotely different from America and ran around asking as many questions and making weird assumptions as she could. 

Don’t get me wrong I’ve always wanted to visit london and I can definitely understand where Rory is coming from but . . . living in a tourist town myself I found her attitude a tad annoying. Anyway Rory actually starts out the book completely normal. And by normal I mean not seeing ghosts. Then she has a near death experience and the actual ghost part starts.

Jazza: This is Rory’s roommate. Don’t bother liking her she’s another friend character that disappears halfway through the book in order to make way for the rest of the plot.

Jerome: The love interest who, also, disappeared halfway through the book. Which I guess is better than him sticking around for nothing more than a convoluted and usually nasty romance.

Boo: Rory’s other roommate. She started out as honestly a bit of a brat. But she got better. In fact she was the only one who actually stuck around for entire narrative.

Likes

England is always cool: What can I say . . . I have a totally unhealthy obsession with Harry Potter. 

And while I wait around for an appropriate amount of time to pass in-between rereads I will pounce on anything that promises English boarding schools. Of course this school was more interested in pubs and wacky “Bonfire night” traditions 

(seriously England what the heck? its Hal-low-ween say it with me.)

As usual whenever the story actually got into the ghost part it was interesting: I mean the idea of ghost police was very Lockwood and Co. (which everybody knows I’m having a serious withdrawal from) so that was nice.

Dislikes

Frankly the plot was oddly paced: What is it with ghost stories that throw all the ‘scary’, intense, or interesting things in the last fifty pages? I mean there’s a few strange sightings, a lot of snogging, and the occasional murder which was always far removed from the protagonist and honestly that about sums up the first two thirds of the book. 

Don’t like.

Practically all the characters were gone by the second act:  Seriously there was an actual shift. First set of friends faded off . . . new set of friends appeared magically. Or I guess, given the genre, supernaturally. It was just kind of weird. The way the narrative sort of picked up and dropped characters faster than you could say ‘I think I’m warming up to you’.

What is Logic: Do people in ghost stories live in a world where ghost stories don’t exist. Like you know what you should do when you meet a ghost. Follow it out into the dark night all on your lonesome. Or better yet wander around a dark subway tunnel trying to find it.

The Ghost’s identity: Spoilers as usual. The ghost wasn’t even Jack the Ripper. You sold the idea of your book with Jack the Ripper. Would people have picked this book up if the ghost of some random person had risen to start killing people? Well that’s what he was. 

The ghost was just imitating the famous Jack the Ripper murders in order to . . . get the ghost police’s attention. Basically there was much disappointment.

I don’t know about this book. I didn’t hate it with a burning passion like the other YA Ghost stories I’ve read. I don’t think these books are my thing. So far they have been really unimpressive. So in the grand scheme of thing The Name of the Star really wasn’t that bad.