Lee-Anne

This was such a magnificent read. An easy five stars with no notes for me. I'll probably circle back and actually write out my thoughts in more detail eventually, but for the moment I need to let this percolate a bit. There's just so much to unpack.

...but damn, that ending was massively cathartic.

Reads like a slasher: short, punchy, fun. Doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, but there were some surprising twists. Kind of on the fence about some of the twists, though, but am open to picking up the sequel if/when it happens to see where the author takes things.

This book has completely changed how I'll view the Jack the Ripper story going forward. There's actually a line in the conclusion that puts it best: "In order to gawp at and examine this miracle of malevolance we have figurativbely stepped over the bodies of those he murdered, and in some cases, stopped to kick them as we walked past".

And, man, is that ever true.

This is also something that this book tries to address. By turning its attention away from teh killer and instead opt5 to focus on the lives of his victims, it compeletely reframes the narrative. It charts the journey of each of the five victims' lives, from birth to death, as best as possible, and by doing so gives us some idea of who they were as people independent of their iconic deaths. Their lives were often tragic, but ultimately pretty relatable, particularly given the times. This makes the fact that they are so often reduced to their deaths that much more galling, in my opinion.

In essence, this book asks us to not blindly trust the "official records"—which in many cases were either based off third-hand gossip, or so thoroughly twisted as to be completely useless. Instead, it asks us to look past those sensational myths and to finally grant these women the dignity and understanding they have been denied for well over a century.

Still holds up on re-read after around a decade. Did find myself catching a lot more of the little nuances, particularly after finally reading 1984. The way language is manipulated and weaponized is, frankly, terrifying to me.

But also ...where the hell is the cat?

I'll preface this by saying that these are not books you probably pick up for the nuanced plot. That being said, there were some seeds of potential there, actually. Surprising, I know.

It didn't seem to go anywhere — at least not in this book — but since it is part of a series, broadly speaking, who knows? Maybe it gets developed.

In any case, this was a quick and mostly fun read. I enjoyed the bickering back and forth. The chemistry was pretty solid for the most part. Love me some bisexual rep and conversations about the sexuality spectrum, honestly, worked in organically without seeming preachy.

The pacing was fairly abrupt at points. And while you don't seem to need to have read prior entries in the series, I think it doesn't hurt to have at least read Luke and Roman's book for some extra context. Which I'll definitely be doing because I was pretty intrigued.

Okay, so I did not love how Vlad's internalized homophobia was dealt with. An attempt was certainly made, but it feels like it could have been handled with a bit more care. Ditto the slurs, although that was possibly more understandable in context. I just found Vlad's repeated (and by this I mean it was pretty much identically phrased each time) assertions about his sexuality a bit tedious after a while. Yes, this is a big, significant moment. Yes, no experience is the same, but lord.

On a slightly more persnickety, personal note, I did also find that there were some weird quirks with Vlad's (who is Russian) internal dialogue. Could he feasibly be using the word "slag"? Sure. Do I buy it? Not really.