Transcription
Hey guys, somebody's back for one more book review. It's just because I have time right now to film them, because I feel like at the end of the month I always have quite a few videos coming up, and these book reviews have been piling up. So I need to film them and then upload them, and hopefully you guys will watch them. But yes, I am going to be talking about *Stalking Jack the Ripper* by Kerri Maniscalco. I keep forgetting her name, but oh my god, I've really enjoyed this book. I gave it 5 stars. I only recommend this because it's just such an interesting and gory book, and the black loved it so much. Even though like gore is not my thing, like I can handle Golmaal and horror, but I really just tell you a thing—yes, the crap out of me—like I just can't handle it. Anything freaks me out, but I really enjoyed this book, and I think it's great. Like, actually having sort of this like retelling of the Jack the Ripper story, because all the elements, like all the murders, all the instruments, and all that are actually the main story—like they're, I mean, they're actually the history of Jack the Ripper—like all the names and how they died, and like the places that people went. There's photos in this book that talk about things, and it's just like those are done really well. And I just saw the idea of actually fictionalizing the story, even though it's very bad and we never really found out who Jack the Ripper is—there's one of the greatest mysteries ever—but I just saw it was done so well, and I just can't wait to read *Hunt a Killer: Dracula*. But I can't probably get into that until next year. But that makes me relive it. And this book is probably around 300 pages long, so I found it to be quite fast-paced. Like I just, I got through it in two days. And for me, not really reading much really lately at all—like even though I am reading seven books a month, it's still—I used to read more than that—so the fact that I read this in two days made me really happy. I just can't recommend this enough. Like I haven't even talked about it yet, but I can't recommend it enough, and I enjoyed it. So now I'm gonna get into the review. There will be spoilers, probably more for like what happens at the end of the book, but I'm excited to get into it.
I loved Audrey Rose. She was such a great character, and I thought it was great that even though she has all these like restrictions on her for being a woman in this time—because it was set in 1888, I'm pretty sure—she still wanted to find out more about life and death. Because when her mother died, she prayed to God for so long, because Audrey got sick from scarlet fever, but one of the fevers that was going around, and her mother looked after her. And when Audrey got better, her mother died of the sickness, which is a very high blow for her. And she prayed and prayed, and God never listened to her, so she turned to science. She started to learn or she could about death, about how bodies are autopsied in those times. And her uncle, who was like an autopsy person, she went and worked for him and went under him and learned about everything, and she did start to work with bodies and did learn. And she went—she posed as a boy to go to school—like her father and brother didn't like know about her like sort of obsession with—how far she went with her—she went out there to learn about all this morbid stuff. But she still was a girl—like she still loved to get dressed and go to dinners and to go to parties and to like be around people—but she wanted to learn as much as she could so that she could try and help in her own sense of the way, and just to be able to be what she wanted to be, which I thought was really, really great. She's also such a really smart and strong character, and I love the way that she would bounce off Thomas, who he's the love interest of this book. But it was just so great, and they're so beautiful together. But yeah, so she was thinking of like ways that the murderer could have done things that she got so obsessed with; she wanted to find out because like these women who were dying used to work in her house—like she had connections to the—she wanted to help but stop and to maybe find redemption for these women who died in such gruesome ways. Because at the beginning, the murders weren't too bad, but the first one was sort of an attempt at something, and it didn't work, and as they progress they got worse and worse and worse until the final one where the skin was actually cut from the person's body. And reading that, I was like, look—I really thought her character was smart and great, and she just did a really good job of figuring out who Jack the Ripper was.
Thomas, I loved him so much. But like so many—I just have that, you know—they're really cocky and arrogant, and they're always sort of mean to the main characters. Like he was like a baster, flirty, and always be like, "Oh, we can go into my bunda, you know, and like have sex and like stuff like that," which I thought was really funny. Oh, I'm gonna buy like this with this like when I played since I cut my hair like three years ago because my hair was so short, and now it's getting longer, and I'm like, yes. But yes, Thomas was like that really erratic person who was hiding pain because he lost his mother and like before whose mother was practically in the grave, his father remarried and like cast Thomas off, and Thomas is living on his own, and he's very smart as well, and he's learning under her uncle as well—that's how they met and got together and everything. But I loved it that he didn't care that she was a woman; he would fight her on things, and they would work together and solve problems. And he, like, I mean those points where he's like, "You should not be out here in the street and not doing things," but still he would be there to look after her and have fun with her, even though she really didn't like him at first, and then she grew to like him, even though he was taunting and teasing her. I just love the growth of their relationship to the point where they did kiss, because like he thought she—like they got attacked by someone who was like after Thomas, and they were holding a knife against her, and he did like cut her abilities—like, "I love you," that's right—and then they kissed, and now they're gonna be together going off to Pennsylvania—or no, Romania—to go find Prince Dracula. So I'm excited that they're gonna be together, and we're gonna see more of a relationship growth. But that's the thing that gets me is like most books that say that they end up together at the end or at the beginning, so if they're together in the beginning they had to get ripped apart or they have relationship problems or some goes down, and then they end up together again in the end, or you just get all this tension until the end where they get together. So I don't know how to feel because it's like sometimes I get really anxious when they're together at the beginning, and sometimes I love it. So yeah, but yes, I think they have a really great relationship, and I want them to get married, make babies, and they oughta keep working together. I just have a lot of fun. And yeah, I think they're just—they're perfect.
I also like her uncle. Like he got so obsessed with these things that it was so great. But when they thought it was him—like not that Audrey did—but like the authorities like got her father and put him in prison, and he didn't even do anything, and like he went crazy, and then they got a man, and then like he was just such a really, really interesting person, but he was like crazy as well—like he'd be going around writing things and freaking out. Like yeah, but I just thought he was a great character. Audrey's family was interesting, but they're still getting over the death of her mother, even though it's been like eight years. It's a good wall, but a father is like God severe, always say Dave, and I didn't know that at the time, but yeah—like he got rid of his staff every couple of weeks; he had to make sure everything was spotless, and you really didn't want Audrey ever laying in the house, even though she had to because she had to be out in society with women and all that stuff. And her brother was interesting—like there was this obsession with his hair, and he was always brushing it, and like he was always drinking and eating nice cheeses, but he really cared about Audrey, and then he was sort of being on like finding out who the murderer was as well. They kind of like Georgie's family, but she was kind of okay to like let them go and go to Romania because that's what the father is letting her do, which is really cool. But yes, I've really enjoyed the plot, and as everything was happening, and I think it's gonna get really expanded on in the next book. I decided, and I guess, true, Jack the Ripper was okay. I knew it. I knew it was her brother, okay, because it had to be someone in the family—like I mean it couldn't—like out of all the people—like I mean Thomas is too obvious, the uncle is too obvious, it could have been the father or the brother. And like he was acting so strange—the charmer, trying to get her out of situations and trying to steer her away from things—and like it too—you are doing this, and you're so wrong, and you're killing all these women, and I don't know why. And like when they're talking about how it's like murderers kill people they know, when that was all the maids, and that I'm like it's obviously someone in the family. And when Audrey started to think it was her father and was following him around, what she actually found out it was her brother, that was so creepy. When you found out that Nathaniel actually had their mother's corpse sitting in the basement all these years, and he was getting the skin and the organs to bring her back with electricity and like frankensteining this, and I might feel oh my god, and like orgy's reaction, and then how sad it was going to bring himself, and I was just like, oh my god, this is too intense—like I was very upset and distraught in this whole moment, and I'm like, oh my god—like he just killed himself. She's got no one now—the father's lost his son and his wife—oh my god, it's all happening, and it's very upsetting. I still can't believe that he actually let her go off to Romania, which is gonna be the next book, as I said before, with Thomas, and I'm just like, oh my god, it's gonna be hard to pick the next one though, because I wouldn't want then murder stuff happening again. I hope my—yeah—the figure it out in the next book, but if I do, I'll probably be really surprised. It's just it was kind of very easy to pick up on these little clues in this book for like why it would be Nathaniel. And I'm was just like, yes, even though terrific, I was excited that I got it right. And yeah, at the back of the book here, he does say, "He murdered women in cold blood, he terrorized an entire city, he taunted those of us who hunted him down, but despite all these horrors, in the end I could not deny it. I was a girl who loved the rip-off. She loves her brother. Why would she lovely? She loves them through the river." But still, that is just a big ass flu run on the back of the book. "I love the Ripper; that is my brother." Okay, exciting. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed my book review, and I hope people will read this book. They can talk to me because it's like—it's like it's a people are threaded but not that many people, so I think it needs more hype and more people reading it. And yeah, but anyway, I hope you guys enjoy my book review. Have a lovely rest of your day, and I'll talk to you later. Bye.