Shades of London Series - by Maureen Johnson

My rating: 

Since I'm behind on writing reviews, I'm going to cheat a bit and review this series as a whole. I actually checked out the first book, The Name of the Star, without realizing it was part of a series. I had just heard that it was a young adult book about Jack the Ripper, and put it on my to-read list.

The Name of the Star was actually a lot different than I was expecting. Without really knowing anything about the book other than it featured Jack the Ripper I was thinking historical fiction. The modern day setting was a surprise, but a pleasant one. I really enjoyed Rory Deveaux as the main character because she comes across as a very normal teen and very believable as a realistic character. Even when she becomes involved the mystery surrounding the Ripper murders, she still worries about the boy she might like and trying to pass her classes. The supernatural aspect also made this book a lot of fun and was a twist on the copycat killer plot line that I haven't read before.

The second book, The Madness Underneath, picks up as Rory is recovering from the attack by the Jack the Ripper copycat. She's forced to see a therapist even though she can't actually tell them that she can see ghosts, or that it was actually a ghost that attacked her. Eventually though, the Shades (the group of ghost hunters Rory's friends belong to) are able to pull some strings and get her back to school in London. My only complaint about this book is that not much happened in terms of the plot. All the characters were still great, but once Rory got back to Wexford I was expecting more to happen.

Even though the second book wasn't as great as I expected, I feel like The Shadow Cabinet more than makes up for it. After the cliffhanger ending of the previous book, we jump straight into the action as Rory tries to figure out how to find the ghost of one of her friends. Nobody even knows if Rory's theory worked, and maybe the ghost they're all looking for doesn't exist. Rory's school nemesis, Charlotte, is still missing after being kidnapped by Jane and her cult of followers. It also seems like they might be covering up the mass murder of ten people over forty years earlier. This book is just one surprise after another and the ending is no exception. Unfortunately for me, I read the first book thinking it was a standalone, then moved onto the second thinking I was getting into a trilogy. Now I have to endure the long wait for a fourth book.

Even though these weren't the necessarily the best books I've ever read, I'm still going to give the series a 5 paw rating just because of how invested in them I became. All three books had me staying up all night just so I could get to the end without having to take a break and it's been awhile since I've stayed up all night to finish one book, much less three in a row.

El palacio de la medianoche

My rating:               

While at a bookstore here in Barcelona, I found several more books by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, the author of Marina. After debating a bit I decided to buy El palacio de la medianoche, another of his young adult books. Like Marina, this novel also has a somewhat fantastical or supernatural theme and I really enjoyed reading it.

The story focuses on twins who were separated at birth, the sister, Sheere, growing up with her grandmother and the brother, Ben, in an orphanage. They were separated to try to avoid a man who had killed their father and mother and was out to kill them too. Also similarly to Marina, the man, Jawahal, had made himself into a monster while pursuing his work. When Ben and Sheere are finally reunited they, along with Ben's group of friends from the orphanage, work to find out everything they can about the man who is trying to kill them and how they can stop him. While the book does have the same kind of supernatural setting as Marina, I feel like El palacio de la medianoche is more plot-driven. Marina definitely had some intense scenes with plenty of action, but there was also a heavy emphasis on the characters and the general mystery of the situation. This book, on the other hand, still has the mystery but moves forward at a faster pace with lots of action throughout.

Now that I've read two books by Zafón, I really look forward to reading more since what I've read has been great so far. I'm thinking next I might look for La sombra del viento since I have various friends who have recommended it. 

Marina

My rating:                   

Marina is the first book I read this summer, and I actually read it for one of my classes. I'm spending this summer studying abroad, first for a month in France and then a month in Spain (which is where I still am now). For my classes in Spain we have a lot of reading beforehand, which might have been great for the people enjoying their summer vacation but I'm already in France doing my work for those classes and I really wasn't looking forward to reading several novels for my Spanish class at the same time. Fortunately, Marina ended up being an amazing book!

The author, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, is fairly well known for his book La sombra del viento, which I haven't read but plan to at some point. Marina, unlike La sombra del viento, is a young adult novel so it was a pretty easy read. The book focuses on the adventures of Oscar Drai and his friend Marina, two teens in Barcelona. At first Marina is hesitant to spend time with Oscar, but the two end up spending more and more time together, after following a mysterious woman in black from the cemetery. Oscar and Marina end up involved in a mystery that most people had forgotten about years before they born. The mystery centers around Mijail Kolvenik, a foreigner who came to Barcelona and began working making prosthetics. The company he worked for became hugely successful, Kolvenik became rich and married a beautiful woman, but as it turns out he was more or less a mad scientist. Mijail was obsessed with finding a way to cure diseases and avoid death, and he was willing to carry out some pretty extreme experiments hoping to find the results he wanted. Skipping forward to the future with Oscar and Marina, it turns out Kolvenik is still alive but has more or less turned into a monster after experimenting on himself. Along with several people from Kolvenik's past, the two teens try to find out everything they can about the crazy doctor and how they can stop him. 

When I got ready to read Marina for my class, the last thing I expected was a supernatural book aimed towards the young adult audience. Since I read a lot of books like that anyways, I was definitely excited once I started reading. I really like that while Marina still fits into the supernatural genre that seems to be so popular right now, Zafón wrote a very unique book that, at least for me, wasn't too predictable.