Review: Spectacle by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

Title: Spectacle

Author: Jodie Lynn Zdrok

Publisher: Tor Teen

Publishing Date: February 12th, 2019

Pages: 368
Audio Length: 10 Hours and 56 Minutes

Genre: YA Historical Mystery
TW: Murder

Series: Standalone

Source: Audio

 

A YA murder mystery in which a young reporter must use her supernatural visions to help track down a killer targeting the young women of Paris.
Paris, 1887.
Sixteen-year-old Nathalie Baudin writes the daily morgue column for Le Petit Journal. Her job is to summarize each day's new arrivals, a task she finds both fascinating and routine. That is, until the day she has a vision of the newest body, a young woman, being murdered--from the perspective of the murderer himself.
When the body of another woman is retrieved from the Seine days later, Paris begins to buzz with rumors that this victim may not be the last. Nathalie's search for answers sends her down a long, twisty road involving her mentally ill aunt, a brilliant but deluded scientist, and eventually into the Parisian Catacombs. As the killer continues to haunt the streets of Paris, it becomes clear that Nathalie's strange new ability may make her the only one who can discover the killer's identity--and she'll have to do it before she becomes a target herself.

What made me pick this book up: 

The cover caught my eye, it made me think of Jack the Ripper, who I really love reading about.

I love the cover of this one. I love the red and dark tones of it, and how you can see the killer in her back.

What made me read this book:

It sounded interesting. I love me a good serial killer book and this sounded amazing. 

What did I like the most: 

I love that this is set in the 1800's. I love reading books set then, about the style and the way of life then.

The story is a unique story about a young female writer who goes to visit the morgue for work writing for the paper. While she's at the morgue she touches the glass and all of the sudden she sees what the killer sees as if from his point of view. 

I thought the whole touching the glass and seeing what he sees thing. It's really unique to me that she can see it. She could basically help solve the murder, in theory.

I liked the MC for the most part. She was smart, curious, confident. I loved the idea of going to the morgue to be able to see the dead bodies. That's such a different concept because we sure don't do that now. Is that a real thing people used to do? I think it's pretty cool. 

I love how dark and morbid she really is. She's interested in death and blood and gore and... death. And I think that's really cool that she's not a stuck up priss and she likes this stuff. Because I like this stuff.

I definitely liked the mystery and the NEED to know who did it. Every time she met someone or spoke to someone my brain tried to think of a reason that this person COULD be the killer. 

I did like that the MC and her best friends all seemed to be strong females. And that friendship was really important to her. 

What didn't I like: 

The pace. I feel like it was all over the place. It went from fast paced to completely slow. I felt myself almost wanting to skim this book, but I couldn't because it was an audio book. I found myself zoning out a few times because it was just... slow. 

It didn't have the horror factor I thought it would. Or that something with a serial killer should have. No thriller or suspense to it really. There was one part that freaked me out and that's because it's in the catacombs. So of course it's scary.

I felt like it was very anti-climactic. It took forever to get to the who-dunnit, but at the same time they uncovered it fairly quickly. And then it spun off into something else completely. It was kind of confusing.

We never get to find out WHY she can touch the glass and see from the killer's POV. And I found that kind of annoying. Unless I missed something small and mentioned in passing it never once actually explains how or why. 

I also hate the "romance" in this book. Or the lack of it. There was a guy she ended up really liking and they flirted quite a bit. And then she found out he was engaged. Like really? Why even put this in the book. It was just kind of thrown in there and I found it kind of annoying. There was no reason for her to like this guy and it didn't go anywhere. I didn't even like the thought of them together. It felt forced and awkward, and not in the way that I usually enjoy awkwardness.

By the end I just felt like the second half of this book was a mess. Where was the author trying to go with this? All the sudden there was so many questions in  my head that didn't get answered and I feel like it was just a jumble of things I really didn't understand and that weren't answered.

It just kind of felt like there was so much that was just thrown in for absolutely no reason.

Would I read the rest of the series/more from this author?
It wasn't badly written per say. I would definitely give this author a second chance. This was her debut, it's acceptable to be a little messy. 

I'm actually really disappointed in this book. It had so much potential and I wanted it to be so much more. It just fell flat. 

“Nathalie was never afraid of the dark, even as a child. If anything, she wanted to know what was in it."
― Jodie Lynn Zdrok, Spectacle

Jodie Lynn Zdrok holds two MAs in European History and an MBA. In addition to being an author, she's a marketing professional, a freelancer, and an unapologetic Boston sports fan. She enjoys traveling, being a foodie, doing sprint triathlons, and enabling cats. Spectacle is her debut.

Review: Comics Will Break Your Heart by Faith Erin Hicks

Title: Comics Will Break Your Heart

Author: Faith Erin Hicks

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Publishing Date: February 12th, 2019

Pages: 340
Audio Length:

Genre: YA Contemporary
TW: N/A

Series: Standalone

Source: Audio

 

Miriam's family should be rich. After all, her grandfather was the co-creator of smash-hit comics series The TomorrowMen. But he sold his rights to the series to his co-creator in the 1960s for practically nothing, and now that's what Miriam has: practically nothing. And practically nothing to look forward to either-how can she afford college when her family can barely keep a roof above their heads? As if she didn't have enough to worry about, Miriam's life gets much more complicated when a cute boy shows up in town . . . and turns out to be the grandson of the man who defrauded Miriam's grandfather, and heir to the TomorrowMen fortune.

What made me pick this book up: 

The cover caught my eye, that and the title. I love the bright colors and how it looks like it's comics in the font. And of course I love anything involving comic books.

What made me read this book: 

Like I said, I love anything involving comics. And I've been really big into contemporary lately. So this just sounded like a really interesting book to me. 

What did I like the most: 

I love the geekery of it. Of course it's about comics and having a huge fandom. I love how comics are becoming a normal thing to love, and how people don't have to be ashamed of it anymore.

The story is really good, it does almost have a Romeo and Juliet-esque story to it. Minus the people dying of course. But it's also interesting to me to see two teens who come from completely different lives, one rich and has a famous family, and the other not quite poor but definitely has to work, who could have been a famous family if not for the war on who got to claim the comics. 

The characters I think were written well. I loved the MC's parents most. Is that weird? Might be weird. They were so cool and down to earth. The MCs were both pretty great too. I feel like we got to know them and what they're like, and the struggles that they have. 

On one hand you have Weldon (I love this name btw) Who like I said, grew up rich and has a famous family for winning the lawsuit to claim the rights to TomorrowMen. He grew up getting what he wanted, all except the attention of his family. 

He has so much baggage and want and need for love that he acts out by stealing cars and just getting in a lot of trouble.

On the other hand you have Miriam, Mir for short. And her family lost the lawsuit. And so she has to work to go to college and have money for the family. But she has an awesome family who loves her and gives her all the attention.

The romance is sweet, but I feel like it took a while to get to it. I'll talk more about that in the what I didn't like.

This book is written really well I think. It was realistic and fun reading about the comic store and all that.

What didn't I like: Like I said, the romance took a while to get into the book, and when it did I feel like it happened too fast. It went from no I hate you because of what your family did to mine, to I want to spend all my time with you, I love you, blah blah blah.

I also feel like once it got to the romance the whole book felt rushed and nothing REALLY happened in the end. 

I didn't care for most of Mir's friends. They seemed selfish and rude to me. But maybe that's just me. 

Would I read the rest of the series/more from this author?
Absolutely! Especially these ones:

Sweet love story with some geeky elements.

Born in the wilds of British Columbia, the young Faith frolicked among the Sasquatch native to the province before moving to Ontario at age five. There she was homeschooled with her three brothers, and developed an unnatural passion for galloping around on horseback, though never without a proper helmet (because you only get one skull). After twenty years of suffering through Ontario’s obscenely hot summers, she migrated east, and now lives beside the other ocean in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She worked in animation for a bit, and now draws comics full time. She’s not sure how that happened either.