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kerri_strikes_back's review against another edition
4.0
As soon as I started reading this, I thought I would really like it. I've never read any of Isabel Allende before, which I feel like is a huge gap in my literary history - but anyway, I pulled this off the shelf and though I understand from the afterword this isn't her usual genre, I loved the style so much I'll definitely be reading more.
It could definitely be considered a little disjointed, the characters do a lot of "telling" to each other (the ripper players' conversations are basically rehashes of everything else we learn about the cases, or suppositions that are then rehashed later by the police). But that's okay because it means we don't GET context for the murders until the end, when it starts piling up and we read a few sections from the villains POV. The dust jacket description of the Ripper game and the murders in general did NOT match the actual plot, though, fyi.
synopsis:
It could definitely be considered a little disjointed, the characters do a lot of "telling" to each other (the ripper players' conversations are basically rehashes of everything else we learn about the cases, or suppositions that are then rehashed later by the police). But that's okay because it means we don't GET context for the murders until the end, when it starts piling up and we read a few sections from the villains POV. The dust jacket description of the Ripper game and the murders in general did NOT match the actual plot, though, fyi.
synopsis:
Spoiler
beauty Indiana is a manic pixie dream girl but in buxom blond; her daughter Amanda is a young bizarre genius; there are lots of men around who love them both dearly. A family friend who is also clairvoyant predicts a "bloodbath" in San Francisco. this manifests as monthly execution style murders for several months. finally Indiana is kidnapped. her Navy SEAL ex-lover goes to rescue her and dies. her other, shittier boyfriend was killed by the villain. the villain is.... her creepy patient (saw that coming) who is ALSO her one "female" friend (also saw that coming) who has been enacting revenge on everyone who did him wrong in his life. Amanda plays a game called "Ripper" online, which is basically a bunch of smart kids being armchair detectives and they figure everything out and send Ryan (the SEAL) to his death, since they don't tell the police what they know until it's too late.mexscrabbler's review against another edition
3.0
Quite entertaining. This is the first book I've read by this author and, as I understand it, it is not very characteristic of her style, which trends towards magical realism. I thought this book was a lot of fun to read - the characters were interesting and likable, particularly Indiana and Amanda. Towards the end the book got very exciting and kept me up late. This is a fun book. I definitely plan to read other books by the author.
wasupe12's review against another edition
4.0
This novel did not get very good reviews at all, but I thought it was a pleasant read and felt Isabel Allende did well for stepping outside the box and writing a crime novel. It was more than a crime novel, Allende throws in some romance, quirky characters, herbal healing, astrology, and a few nerds.
What this book was not -- deep, thought provoking, magical realism. There was no strong women you rooted for and suffered with, no political adversity, no desperate causes.
There is no comparison between "Ripper" and Allende's other writings, so I did not judge. End result, I enjoyed the read.
What this book was not -- deep, thought provoking, magical realism. There was no strong women you rooted for and suffered with, no political adversity, no desperate causes.
There is no comparison between "Ripper" and Allende's other writings, so I did not judge. End result, I enjoyed the read.
jaxlogan's review against another edition
2.0
Diría que no me ha gustado, pero en verdad creo que lo quiero decir es que no lo volvería a leer. Se me ha hecho muy largo y cansino; estaba deseando acabarlo.
Carece de ritmo y la autora mete unas digresiones enormes que a priori no aportan nada.
Y sin embargo, es un libro de Isabel Allende.
No he leído nada más suyo que este libro, pero intuyo que no podía evitar ser fiel a su estilo. Su intención, creo, no era escribir un thriller al uso, sino uno para sus fans: para ella.
Si no es así, para mí ha fracasado. Pero en un rincón pequeñito de mi corazón reconozco que tiene cierto encanto.
Carece de ritmo y la autora mete unas digresiones enormes que a priori no aportan nada.
Y sin embargo, es un libro de Isabel Allende.
No he leído nada más suyo que este libro, pero intuyo que no podía evitar ser fiel a su estilo. Su intención, creo, no era escribir un thriller al uso, sino uno para sus fans: para ella.
Si no es así, para mí ha fracasado. Pero en un rincón pequeñito de mi corazón reconozco que tiene cierto encanto.
april_does_feral_sometimes's review against another edition
2.0
There are a number of problems in reading this book.
The Number One problem is Upfront Bald-Faced Lying in the marketing of the book.
1. The title has nothing to do with the contents of the book on any level. It supposedly is the name of a video game. However, the video game is never played or used as a clue or ever referenced again after being used to explain how a club in the book starts. 'Ripper' references nothing about ripping or anything knife-y which occurs in the book. Instead, it is used as the name of a kind of meek role-playing club which meets online to figure out 'real life' crime. The crimes the club tries to solve are actually based on stolen inside information that the leader of the club, Amanda Jackson, who is either 16 or 17 (her age is given as both in different places in the book, but since she is going to college soon and it mentions her almost being 18 several times, I decided that the earlier reference to her being 16 was an editing error) acquires. Her father, Bob Martin, is a deputy chief of homicide in San Francisco, and it's his information that Amanda 'rips' off, although Martin could care less when he finds out, and he actually provides Amanda with whatever she wants to know later. These are the only two possible reasons I can think of to use the title, 'Ripper', neither of which is one that a buyer of the book will assume is the reason to use it. All of the publisher's advertising about the book says this novel is a murder mystery, so everyone, including me, thinks it's about a serial killer who uses a knife like Jack the Ripper, the famous London 19th-century serial killer. Not.
2. The book is being advertised as if it were a genre mystery. Not! It absolutely is not! It is a mild, mannered, friendly, easy-going, romantic-comedy, chick-lit novel for 400 pages. It actually had me on the path of thinking this was a family-oriented Romance genre author attempting to write an Armistead Maupin book, such as 'Tales of the City', only a lot less interesting, dramatic, engaging or cute. A defined mystery finally becomes important at page 400 or so, but until then the mystery reader must be satisfied with quickie peculiar murders, which pop up every ten chapters or so, that the characters completely ignore or briefly converse about (the Ripper Club). The murders NEVER impact anybody or anything, having absolutely no intersection with the life of any character in the book. In fact, whenever anything mysterious or murderous pops into the universe of the book, it is only noticeable in how it quietly tiptoes away.
3. Amanda Jackson is billed as the amazing blazing wunderkind at the center of the book, girl detective. Instead, she is a peripheral character, barely on stage. She's a nice girl with an occasional walk-on part. The end.
The plot:
Indiana Jackson is an 'earth mother' of the type who includes a tremendous amount of New Age beliefs and customs in her life and philosophies, but strictly of the urban fantasy kind. She runs a small massage healing business utilizing aromatherapy and meditation in San Francisco, and most of her friends are astrologers, mystics and acupuncture specialists. Her daughter Amanda, her father Blake Jackson, her ex-husband Bob Martin, an ex-Seal Ryan Miller and his war dog Attilla, and various other relatives, friends of relatives, clients and small business owners revolve in and out of Indiana's social life, interacting in a variety of romantic comedy cute meet-and-greets. Amanda grows up under all of this slightly unconventional but warm love so that she is spunky with her mom, dad, granddad and wants to start a murder club with some of her 'Ripper' online video game friends.
The club itself serves as bridge to move the plot forward occasionally. They put information together about some murders which they miraculously link up, but half of the time, it didn't matter. Three times what the club comes up with only serves to help the club members think about possible connections, but ultimately they and their conclusions are meaningless to solving the crimes because the information they figure out is already out there on some level and either the cops or other people have it as well. When they do figure stuff out that's important, cool, because the story briefly begins to have a heart beat. However, the information wasn't acted on except for the last two bits of stuff they figured out, near the end of the book. By this time, I was already wondering what was the point of this club? Sorry to say, but it was more of a chick-lit social club to discuss the poor health of most of the members than anything else, and a way for Amanda to playfully bully her beloved grandfather, Blake. Amanda and Blake really are quite charming together. But every member is a walk-on and forgettable.
The club members are all damaged - physically disabled, suffering from cancer, socially shy, etc. They met each other through the online game 'Ripper'. All of them have ridiculous avatars, which seems to be a point of the book, although it doesn't ultimately mean anything. The author includes them as if they will be people who matter, but they don't, except to be able to pass on a vital fact around page 450.
There are several characters who annoyed me terribly. One character who may have been written in for the purposes of a red herring, or a lovable crank, or comic relief, but all I know is I was strongly hoping she'd be a murder victim by page 50 - Celeste Roko, astrology consultant. She annoys half of the other characters in the book as well, but to no real purpose.
I was not real happy about a heroine character either - Indiana Jackson, Amanda's mother. She is one of those ridiculous people who think massage and smelling flowers cures everything except cancer. Unfortunately, she is the center of the book. We readers are supposed to adore her. I didn't. The blurbs on the cover of the book reveal she disappears, and Amanda marshals her mystery team together to save her. This is SO misleading and wrong!
A number of strange murders happen. Bob Martin is in homicide, but he has no idea they are connected. After all, there are a lot of murders in San Francisco. Amanda figures it out by no means I can see, and puts it to her video playing friends to think about. Meanwhile, her gorgeous mother Indiana is at the center of a circle of women and men who are fascinated by her. All of them are mesmerized by her full figure and unaffected unadorned personality. After she massages them, they want nothing more than to follow her around, call her, date her or be her friend. She believes she cures their aches and pains through massage and aromatherapy, but they think it's the being with her that gives them peace. So, for 400 pages we see how these various Indiana-enchanted folks intersect their lives with Indiana, meeting for coffee, competing for her hand in lust, etc. When there are 75 pages left to read, Indiana finally disappears. The 'Ripper' club figures out a clue, Amanda calls Ryan Miller and Martin, and everybody bumps it up a little into a thriller, with an identity mystery cleared up that I had figured out by page 200 simply because of a certain character's social weirdness.
I'm not a genre martinet, ok? If new authors or established literary novelists want to try genre writing or escape an author hell of writer typecasting, that's ok with me. I don't freak because Stephen King writes literary horror books, and I easily rate with a clear conscience many mystery novels five stars while giving literary classics and award winners of prestigious prizes three stars or worse. Books are a subjective experience in the end, right? Right?
That said, this book is ok, but it's messed up. If you ordinarily like gentle family-friendly chick-lit, this might shock you horrifically with the free-floating scenes of brief and unattached, and two incidents of unnecessary, murders. I suppose you can skip those pages. If you wanted a mystery, this book will bore you to death. I recommend avoiding this book. If Romance is what rings your bells, this book will massively disappoint you by the end. Again, I'd recommend avoiding this book. While there is gentle humor, and perhaps some sharp-elbow but underdone digs at the California New Age milieu, there is no real literary- or gutter- satire or irony. Literary readers will be scratching their heads. Isabel Allende is an experienced award-winning literary writer of many many books, and she has millions of fans. If there was anything metafictional or illuminating of the human condition in this novel, I missed it. If anything, it's mostly a chick-lit read, but not for the sensitive. I frequently see reviews where some readers are upset by a single scary mild attack by a bad guy, or throw a book out with the garbage at the first 'darn', yet strangely, those readers would like 2/3rds of this book, I think. However, they would be throwing up their lunches every 50 or 70 pages by the murders, which, by the way, are not really graphic.
Well. In re-reading what I wrote, I guess I'm saying everyone will be disappointed by this book, but with completely different complaints and disappointments. Bravo, Isabel Allende!
The Marketing Department of Harper Collins should be ashamed of themselves.
The Number One problem is Upfront Bald-Faced Lying in the marketing of the book.
1. The title has nothing to do with the contents of the book on any level. It supposedly is the name of a video game. However, the video game is never played or used as a clue or ever referenced again after being used to explain how a club in the book starts. 'Ripper' references nothing about ripping or anything knife-y which occurs in the book. Instead, it is used as the name of a kind of meek role-playing club which meets online to figure out 'real life' crime. The crimes the club tries to solve are actually based on stolen inside information that the leader of the club, Amanda Jackson, who is either 16 or 17 (her age is given as both in different places in the book, but since she is going to college soon and it mentions her almost being 18 several times, I decided that the earlier reference to her being 16 was an editing error) acquires. Her father, Bob Martin, is a deputy chief of homicide in San Francisco, and it's his information that Amanda 'rips' off, although Martin could care less when he finds out, and he actually provides Amanda with whatever she wants to know later. These are the only two possible reasons I can think of to use the title, 'Ripper', neither of which is one that a buyer of the book will assume is the reason to use it. All of the publisher's advertising about the book says this novel is a murder mystery, so everyone, including me, thinks it's about a serial killer who uses a knife like Jack the Ripper, the famous London 19th-century serial killer. Not.
2. The book is being advertised as if it were a genre mystery. Not! It absolutely is not! It is a mild, mannered, friendly, easy-going, romantic-comedy, chick-lit novel for 400 pages. It actually had me on the path of thinking this was a family-oriented Romance genre author attempting to write an Armistead Maupin book, such as 'Tales of the City', only a lot less interesting, dramatic, engaging or cute. A defined mystery finally becomes important at page 400 or so, but until then the mystery reader must be satisfied with quickie peculiar murders, which pop up every ten chapters or so, that the characters completely ignore or briefly converse about (the Ripper Club). The murders NEVER impact anybody or anything, having absolutely no intersection with the life of any character in the book. In fact, whenever anything mysterious or murderous pops into the universe of the book, it is only noticeable in how it quietly tiptoes away.
3. Amanda Jackson is billed as the amazing blazing wunderkind at the center of the book, girl detective. Instead, she is a peripheral character, barely on stage. She's a nice girl with an occasional walk-on part. The end.
The plot:
Indiana Jackson is an 'earth mother' of the type who includes a tremendous amount of New Age beliefs and customs in her life and philosophies, but strictly of the urban fantasy kind. She runs a small massage healing business utilizing aromatherapy and meditation in San Francisco, and most of her friends are astrologers, mystics and acupuncture specialists. Her daughter Amanda, her father Blake Jackson, her ex-husband Bob Martin, an ex-Seal Ryan Miller and his war dog Attilla, and various other relatives, friends of relatives, clients and small business owners revolve in and out of Indiana's social life, interacting in a variety of romantic comedy cute meet-and-greets. Amanda grows up under all of this slightly unconventional but warm love so that she is spunky with her mom, dad, granddad and wants to start a murder club with some of her 'Ripper' online video game friends.
The club itself serves as bridge to move the plot forward occasionally. They put information together about some murders which they miraculously link up, but half of the time, it didn't matter. Three times what the club comes up with only serves to help the club members think about possible connections, but ultimately they and their conclusions are meaningless to solving the crimes because the information they figure out is already out there on some level and either the cops or other people have it as well. When they do figure stuff out that's important, cool, because the story briefly begins to have a heart beat. However, the information wasn't acted on except for the last two bits of stuff they figured out, near the end of the book. By this time, I was already wondering what was the point of this club? Sorry to say, but it was more of a chick-lit social club to discuss the poor health of most of the members than anything else, and a way for Amanda to playfully bully her beloved grandfather, Blake. Amanda and Blake really are quite charming together. But every member is a walk-on and forgettable.
The club members are all damaged - physically disabled, suffering from cancer, socially shy, etc. They met each other through the online game 'Ripper'. All of them have ridiculous avatars, which seems to be a point of the book, although it doesn't ultimately mean anything. The author includes them as if they will be people who matter, but they don't, except to be able to pass on a vital fact around page 450.
There are several characters who annoyed me terribly. One character who may have been written in for the purposes of a red herring, or a lovable crank, or comic relief, but all I know is I was strongly hoping she'd be a murder victim by page 50 - Celeste Roko, astrology consultant. She annoys half of the other characters in the book as well, but to no real purpose.
I was not real happy about a heroine character either - Indiana Jackson, Amanda's mother. She is one of those ridiculous people who think massage and smelling flowers cures everything except cancer. Unfortunately, she is the center of the book. We readers are supposed to adore her. I didn't. The blurbs on the cover of the book reveal she disappears, and Amanda marshals her mystery team together to save her. This is SO misleading and wrong!
A number of strange murders happen. Bob Martin is in homicide, but he has no idea they are connected. After all, there are a lot of murders in San Francisco. Amanda figures it out by no means I can see, and puts it to her video playing friends to think about. Meanwhile, her gorgeous mother Indiana is at the center of a circle of women and men who are fascinated by her. All of them are mesmerized by her full figure and unaffected unadorned personality. After she massages them, they want nothing more than to follow her around, call her, date her or be her friend. She believes she cures their aches and pains through massage and aromatherapy, but they think it's the being with her that gives them peace. So, for 400 pages we see how these various Indiana-enchanted folks intersect their lives with Indiana, meeting for coffee, competing for her hand in lust, etc. When there are 75 pages left to read, Indiana finally disappears. The 'Ripper' club figures out a clue, Amanda calls Ryan Miller and Martin, and everybody bumps it up a little into a thriller, with an identity mystery cleared up that I had figured out by page 200 simply because of a certain character's social weirdness.
I'm not a genre martinet, ok? If new authors or established literary novelists want to try genre writing or escape an author hell of writer typecasting, that's ok with me. I don't freak because Stephen King writes literary horror books, and I easily rate with a clear conscience many mystery novels five stars while giving literary classics and award winners of prestigious prizes three stars or worse. Books are a subjective experience in the end, right? Right?
That said, this book is ok, but it's messed up. If you ordinarily like gentle family-friendly chick-lit, this might shock you horrifically with the free-floating scenes of brief and unattached, and two incidents of unnecessary, murders. I suppose you can skip those pages. If you wanted a mystery, this book will bore you to death. I recommend avoiding this book. If Romance is what rings your bells, this book will massively disappoint you by the end. Again, I'd recommend avoiding this book. While there is gentle humor, and perhaps some sharp-elbow but underdone digs at the California New Age milieu, there is no real literary- or gutter- satire or irony. Literary readers will be scratching their heads. Isabel Allende is an experienced award-winning literary writer of many many books, and she has millions of fans. If there was anything metafictional or illuminating of the human condition in this novel, I missed it. If anything, it's mostly a chick-lit read, but not for the sensitive. I frequently see reviews where some readers are upset by a single scary mild attack by a bad guy, or throw a book out with the garbage at the first 'darn', yet strangely, those readers would like 2/3rds of this book, I think. However, they would be throwing up their lunches every 50 or 70 pages by the murders, which, by the way, are not really graphic.
Well. In re-reading what I wrote, I guess I'm saying everyone will be disappointed by this book, but with completely different complaints and disappointments. Bravo, Isabel Allende!
The Marketing Department of Harper Collins should be ashamed of themselves.
kvanread's review against another edition
1.0
Right up until the end, I had fond feelings for this book. Despite its being basically ridiculous, all over the place, way too back story heavy, full of tell, don't show, it was still an entertaining, page-turning read, with likable characters in my favorite city. I found myself willing to set critical thinking aside and just enjoy the silly ride, but I could not enjoy or overlook the terrible ending which I can't fathom being tolerable to even the most easy going of readers.
jeanpatterson2's review against another edition
4.0
Isabel Allende is not known for the psychological thriller/detective genre and this book is a departure for her. Many of her loyal fans have hated it, perhaps feeling a bit betrayed. I personally enjoyed the book, which felt at times a little tongue-in-cheek, a little irreverent with some quirky characters, with references to Swedish detective novels and other little digs at popular culture at the time the book was written.
The usual elements of an Allende novel are there, the interesting, well developed characters, lush and beautiful writing. The novel takes place in and around San Francisco. Ripper refers to an online game being played by teenager Amanda Martin, her grandfather, and a group of misfits teens from around the world. Amanda's father is the Deputy Chief of Homicides for San Francisco PD. Because of Amanda's relationship with the SFPD, she is able to gain access to information about homicides and the Ripper gamers use their talents and smarts to figure out a series of murders are connected and are the work of a serial killer. The story takes a few twists and turns as the serial killer is eventually revealed and apprehended. I won't go into any details to avoid spoiling the story.
The usual elements of an Allende novel are there, the interesting, well developed characters, lush and beautiful writing. The novel takes place in and around San Francisco. Ripper refers to an online game being played by teenager Amanda Martin, her grandfather, and a group of misfits teens from around the world. Amanda's father is the Deputy Chief of Homicides for San Francisco PD. Because of Amanda's relationship with the SFPD, she is able to gain access to information about homicides and the Ripper gamers use their talents and smarts to figure out a series of murders are connected and are the work of a serial killer. The story takes a few twists and turns as the serial killer is eventually revealed and apprehended. I won't go into any details to avoid spoiling the story.
miraclecharlie's review against another edition
2.0
Full review on my blog; HERE WE ARE, GOING. CLICK HERE: http://herewearegoing.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/reading-ripper-by-isabel-allende/
Blame it on the typo on page 398, but I just can't like this book.
I am NOT a book snob. As you can tell from my Goodreads lists, I love a good mystery, crime novel, library cozy, whatever. So, I was really looking forward to Isabel Allende's Ripper [CLICK HERE] thinking it would be a combination of genre novel and literary fiction. I don't suppose an author who's sold sixty million books will much care that I was disappointed. But, I was.
I finished the book five days ago and have been delaying my "review" because my goal is never to write negative reviews. Life is too short and writing too hard to disrespect someone's efforts. So, five days later and not only do I still not have anything very nice to say, even worse, I can barely remember anything about the book. In fact, I just surfed to the Washington Post review [click here] and was surprised to read that the character, Indiana, about whom I remember almost nothing, was a main character.
I think there are far too many characters serving far too few purposes and the book seems more an experiment with a formula than the work of someone who had a passionate need to tell a story. And there's a typo on page 398. And it just seems to me that a publisher asking $29 for a book ought to adequately proofread the damn thing.
And edit it.
Listen, please look at my OTHER book reviews. I usually am not like this. I am sorry.
Blame it on the typo on page 398, but I just can't like this book.
I am NOT a book snob. As you can tell from my Goodreads lists, I love a good mystery, crime novel, library cozy, whatever. So, I was really looking forward to Isabel Allende's Ripper [CLICK HERE] thinking it would be a combination of genre novel and literary fiction. I don't suppose an author who's sold sixty million books will much care that I was disappointed. But, I was.
I finished the book five days ago and have been delaying my "review" because my goal is never to write negative reviews. Life is too short and writing too hard to disrespect someone's efforts. So, five days later and not only do I still not have anything very nice to say, even worse, I can barely remember anything about the book. In fact, I just surfed to the Washington Post review [click here] and was surprised to read that the character, Indiana, about whom I remember almost nothing, was a main character.
I think there are far too many characters serving far too few purposes and the book seems more an experiment with a formula than the work of someone who had a passionate need to tell a story. And there's a typo on page 398. And it just seems to me that a publisher asking $29 for a book ought to adequately proofread the damn thing.
And edit it.
Listen, please look at my OTHER book reviews. I usually am not like this. I am sorry.
evelynlucabech's review against another edition
3.0
This is the first Isabel Allende novel I have read, and despite much criticism I read about this book in particular I'm very satisfied with it. The novel pulled me in on the first page and kept me in suspense until the very end. The only things I did not like about the book was the romance parts involving Indiana and Bob's lovers as well as the ending. The plot twist at the end of the book blew my mind as far as revealing the true identity of the serial killer and how all the victims were connected to the killer in a personal way. I was disappointed with the ending of the novel. I feel like Allende could have potentially had a better ending, but I'm still happy about the book as a whole.
soybecca's review against another edition
1.0
DNF - I understand Allende is a character driven author but 1) don’t market this as a mystery if there’s no effective suspense and 2) maybe rely less on tired, gender normative stereotypes to shape the characters you insist on describing again and again in great detail.
I also can’t tell if things were getting lost in the translation but this is the line that did me in: “The young assistant saw Ayani the way one might an iguana — exotic, fascinating, dangerous.” Gotta make sure I protect myself from those apex predator iguanas in the future.
I also can’t tell if things were getting lost in the translation but this is the line that did me in: “The young assistant saw Ayani the way one might an iguana — exotic, fascinating, dangerous.” Gotta make sure I protect myself from those apex predator iguanas in the future.