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A review by thebookberrie
Spectacle by Jodie Lynn Zdrok
1.0
Do you ever read a book that just makes you appreciate another book so much more? Me right now thinking that huh, [b:Stalking Jack the Ripper|40727470|Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #1)|Kerri Maniscalco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1530823449l/40727470._SY75_.jpg|47434536] was actually really damn good, at least compared to this one.
Spectacle is about a teenage girl who writes a daily morgue column for a popular journal. Her job puts her in the way of dead bodies that Nathalie finds both fascinating and routine. Until while visiting the newest dead body, a young girl, Nathalie gets a vision of her death that could only have been from the murderer's point of view. When yet another young girl ends up dead, the city of Paris fears that she wasn't his last victim and more will be on the way. As Nathalie gets to the bottom of her newfound power, she gets closer to the murderer and puts herself and those she loves in danger.
Oh dear god this book was all over the place. There is all this talk of people getting experimented on so they have powers and talk of that happened so much. Nathalie kept referring to her visions as "magic" and I don't know, I just didn't like calling it that. It wasn't really magic, in a magical sense, it was just some random ass ability that came from blood transfusions or something. Her power seemed interesting at first but it didn't really make sense, and it never even really helps?? Nathalie does not get anywhere close to solving this mystery herself.
Also Nathalie is selfish as hell. After using her power twice (by accident), she nopes out and refuses as more girls get killed and she even tells a dead body "sorry lol just worrying about myself here!". The only thing that gets her ass in gear is her friend getting murdered. This friend by the way is only seen via letters they are sending back and forth (just filled with exposition) until she shows up for a couple pages, only to get killed after. And yet this murder is supposed to be oh so important and the turning point for Nathalie. Yeah, okay.
This book truly was a discount version of [b:Stalking Jack the Ripper|40727470|Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #1)|Kerri Maniscalco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1530823449l/40727470._SY75_.jpg|47434536] but instead of being fun and cute with a mystery that ends pretty neat, we have Nathalie just being really dense and fighting with her family and friends. And of course all the time that was spent of her complaining about having to wear pants at her job. Which was a super weird job to give her but okay.
The endless boring mystery all about the people with random powers that show up randomly in different people after certain experimentation was SO much and I just wasn't interested. The powers and how they got them barely made any sense. Even the damn murder mystery was hilariously bad. The actual murderer gets killed at 80% and then the rest of the book is pretty much: uhhhh now what? The resolution was not satisfying or exciting, and the book was so annoyingly slow. It sets up for a sequel but I'm good.
Also this audiobook annoyed me SO much. When Nathalie and everyone else would talk, they would have a French accent but then everything else from the third person POV was an American accent. Either have the entire audiobook have a French accent or no French accent but the half and half got on my nerves.
Just a hugely disappointing book.
Spectacle is about a teenage girl who writes a daily morgue column for a popular journal. Her job puts her in the way of dead bodies that Nathalie finds both fascinating and routine. Until while visiting the newest dead body, a young girl, Nathalie gets a vision of her death that could only have been from the murderer's point of view. When yet another young girl ends up dead, the city of Paris fears that she wasn't his last victim and more will be on the way. As Nathalie gets to the bottom of her newfound power, she gets closer to the murderer and puts herself and those she loves in danger.
Oh dear god this book was all over the place. There is all this talk of people getting experimented on so they have powers and talk of that happened so much. Nathalie kept referring to her visions as "magic" and I don't know, I just didn't like calling it that. It wasn't really magic, in a magical sense, it was just some random ass ability that came from blood transfusions or something. Her power seemed interesting at first but it didn't really make sense, and it never even really helps?? Nathalie does not get anywhere close to solving this mystery herself.
Also Nathalie is selfish as hell. After using her power twice (by accident), she nopes out and refuses as more girls get killed and she even tells a dead body "sorry lol just worrying about myself here!". The only thing that gets her ass in gear is her friend getting murdered. This friend by the way is only seen via letters they are sending back and forth (just filled with exposition) until she shows up for a couple pages, only to get killed after. And yet this murder is supposed to be oh so important and the turning point for Nathalie. Yeah, okay.
This book truly was a discount version of [b:Stalking Jack the Ripper|40727470|Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #1)|Kerri Maniscalco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1530823449l/40727470._SY75_.jpg|47434536] but instead of being fun and cute with a mystery that ends pretty neat, we have Nathalie just being really dense and fighting with her family and friends. And of course all the time that was spent of her complaining about having to wear pants at her job. Which was a super weird job to give her but okay.
The endless boring mystery all about the people with random powers that show up randomly in different people after certain experimentation was SO much and I just wasn't interested. The powers and how they got them barely made any sense. Even the damn murder mystery was hilariously bad. The actual murderer gets killed at 80% and then the rest of the book is pretty much: uhhhh now what? The resolution was not satisfying or exciting, and the book was so annoyingly slow. It sets up for a sequel but I'm good.
Also this audiobook annoyed me SO much. When Nathalie and everyone else would talk, they would have a French accent but then everything else from the third person POV was an American accent. Either have the entire audiobook have a French accent or no French accent but the half and half got on my nerves.
Just a hugely disappointing book.