The Madness Underneath
I wished the covers of the books in the series matched.
Title: The Madness Underneath
Author: Maureen Johnson
Publisher: Harper Collins Children’s
Release Date: 2/26/2013
Length: 304 pages
Series?: Shades of London #2
Genre: YA paranormal
Format: e-book
Source: ARC from NetGalley
If I was a little iffy on Maureen Johnson before, she has now totally stolen my heart.
The Madness Underneath is the second book in the Shades of London series. If you haven’t read the first book, The Name of the Star, click the link to start with that review. This review contains spoilers for the first book, and I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun!
Book two picks up where the first book leaves off. Rory is recovering from her encounter with The Ripper, and trying to figure out exactly what happened with the woman in the bathroom. Something’s not right. Rory gets permission from her therapist to return to school and normalcy, even though Rory still has some issues she needs to confront about what happened to her that night. In addition, there have been more mysterious murders in the Wexford area — though not connected to The Ripper murders, it’s certainly raised a red flag in Rory’s mind.
What’s confusing about this book is the shift the story undergoes at the midpoint. There seems to be a solid mystery and plot, but the story becomes about something else entirely — and, I’ll warn you, some of this is messy and things are left unresolved. It’s not even clear if they will be resolved at all. By the end of the book there are WAY BIGGER fish to fry. I like what Johnson does with contemporary novels, but I love how she transfers that to the paranormal with finesse. I do wish we’d gotten more of Jazza and Wexford, since I do love a good boarding school situation, but I like where Johnson *might* be taking this.
FINAL GRADE: A I give this an A because I like mysteries and I like kissing, and this book does both. Yes. I enjoyed the kissing in this book, I did not find it obnoxious or stereotypical. However, the REAL reason this book gets an A is the ending. It was like BAM, out of nowhere, my jaw dropped. If you love a book that merits that type of reaction, then you need to get on this series. You might even be able to get away with skipping the first one, since Johnson does a good job of explaining everything and reminding us of what happened in the first novel (I know I had forgotten). For librarians, this book is appropriate for both middle and high school. It’s definitely paranormal fiction, but we all know that’s hot these days.
How do you feel about kissing in books? Love it no matter what? Hate is? Find it often unrealistic?
Posted on February 14, 2013, in books, librarian, teacher and tagged 80 Books 2013, Grade: B, humor, London, paranormal, series, ya. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
I have a review for this coming soon too! It’s strange that the US versions don’t have a theme with the covers, the UK ones do!
It’s just another instance of them changing the covers mid-series! They changed the cover of The Name of The Star to match this one, I think. I hate when they do that, it messes me up!
Especially since I have the first one hardback & signed by Maureen Johnson… I don’t really want to go get a different book so my covers all match. I loved the first cover, too. I wish they’d continued the theme.
Ohhh, I cannot wait to read this! Not gonna look tooo closely at the review until afterwards because I like to be surprised, but yay! And as for kissing in books, when they’re awesome stories I find it usually fits perfectly, and even if it’s a little dreamy sometimes I don’t find it too unrealistic generally. Sometimes life has moments like that, that seem like they were scripted for a story but they just so happen to be real life.
Yay! I’ve just finished (and loved) Name of the Star…glad this one is keeping up the pace
Oh, this is exciting! I’ve been interested in reading Maureen Johnson (mostly bc John Green likes her) but haven’t gotten around to it!
Kissing in books….meh. I find that it is often unrealistic or over described.
So pretty late to the party…but I’d like to say that I’m glad you reviewed this since I’ve read The Name of the Star, but I didn’t know if the second book would live up to the first. Good to know that it does!
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