For those of you who are regular readers of my blog, you will know that the Stalking Jack the Ripper series is one of my ultimate faves. The characters, the settings, the murder… Everything about it is *mwah*. I’ve always loved murder (okay, that sounds weird) and I’ve always been intrigued by forensics. So, it should come to you as no surprise that I like reading about things like that as well. I was looking for books similar to SJtR ON Goodreads, and came upon Spectacle. 

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.

I’m very much a mood reader, I can’t create a set TBR, or do one of things where you pull a title of a book out of a jar… I HAVE to read the book depending on my mood, otherwise I will end up putting it down.

Even though we’re going through a pretty depressing time right now in the world (I hope everyone is okay, and staying safe!), I really wanted to read something murder-y and I had been eyeing up Spectacle for a while. So, I took it off my shelf and started reading…

 

“Nathalie was never afraid of the dark, even as a child. If anything, she wanted to know what was in it.”

 

It took me a while to get into. I couldn’t really connect with the main character, Nathalie. She was sixteen and just read much older. I know that this is a common theme in YA, but I kept trying to imagine my seventeen-year-old sister doing half the things that the main character did and I just couldn’t.

I have seen a lot of people saying in their reviews that the main character was ‘annoying’ because she couldn’t accept her gift. BUT EXCUSE ME. Imagine if it was the 19th century – or any time period, to be honest – and you could suddenly see how people died. I’m pretty sure I’d be scared out of my mind, confused, and I’d definitely be thinking that I was going insane. So, yes I completely get where people are coming from when they’re saying she was slightly annoying, but duuuuddeeee. C’mon. She’s just found out she can see things… *shudders*

 

“To go to the morgue was to poke the grim reaper in the ribs, to tell him he was riveting. Because if he was riveting, he wasn’t scary.”

 

Supporting Nathalie were two brilliantly written female characters: Simone and Agnés. I love a good f/f friendship in YA. There was a little bit of bitchiness but I kinda get it since tensions were so high anyway in Paris because of a serial killer that was on the loose. Another interesting side character was Christophe. I rolled my eyes at first at this weird-ass flirtationship and I really didn’t want it to happen. But, when Christophe told Nathalie that he was engaged, I felt SO SAD and just lay there in bed like ‘I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU!’ Oh, how the tables turned.

 

 

One of the things that I thought was intriguing was the world of Insightfuls and the back story of the experiments. I’m really hoping that these are explored more in the second book – Sensational – because it was so interesting to read about this mad scientist who wanted to inject powers into people.

ALSO. LONG LIVE AUNT BRIGITTE! I don’t care if she’s gone mad, (well, I do care because I think she’s amazing), her character was so interesting and even though she was in an asylum, she still wanted to help Nathalie… I love her so much.

Speaking of the killer, one of the main things that really let this book down was the discovery of their identity. It kind of reminded me of when Dracula is killed in the eponymous classic. His death is over in two sentences and the discovery of the Dark Artist was definitely reminiscent of Dracula. It was a shame, actually because there was this massive build up towards finding him and revealing his identity and then… nothing.

Other random thoughts:

• I didn’t really see the point in her dressing up as a boy for the newspaper when half way through, she decides not to do it anymore.
• I lost count at how many times pain au chocolat was mentioned.
• Definitely Jack the Ripper vibes on how the women were murdered. Very grotesque, so content warnings for murder and gore.

Even though there are a few things that could have definitely been improved in this novel, it’s brilliant for a debut, and I’m excited to see how Zdrok’s writing style progresses in her second book.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

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