Book Review: Stalking Jack the Ripper

Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco

Publishing Date: September 20, 2016
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson
Synopsis from Goodreads: 

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord's daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life.

Against her stern father's wishes and society's expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle's laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.

SPOILER FREE REVIEW

I rated it 5/5 stars

Damn! Up until the end, I never guessed who the murderer was. This book kept me up late at night, putting it down was never an option. I need the second book! I can't wait for the second book. And Thomas is just so irresistible! I love how this book takes me back to previous centuries and those are my favorite times. History with their norms, rules, dresses! What's not to love? Kerri just brought me to this world and time. I thought this book was going to be very dark and almost creepy that's why I didn't read it sooner, but now I regret that. I should have known. James Patterson chose her book to be the first of Jimmy Patterson Publishing House debut, it's bound to be PERFECT! Audrey and Thomas better not screw their ship in the next book.

Movie Review: Split (2017)

Release date: January 20, 2017
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley
Running Time: 117 minutes
Language: English
Budget: $ 10 million
Box Office: $ 14.6 million

Three teenagers are kidnapped by "Dennis" one of the 23 personalities inside Kevin Wendell Crumb's body, a victim of childhood abuse with severe dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder). While held captive inside an underground cellar, the other personalities namely "Patricia" and "Hedwig" take turns in visiting and taking care of the girls. After their failed attempts of escape, the three girls are soon put into separate rooms.

Kevin's psychiatrist, Dr. Karen Fletcher began to notice there was something wrong when she started receiving urgent e-mails from one of the personalities who usually meet her, "Barry" asking for a meeting. Barry decides who should be in the light and who should be in the dark, but "Dennis" is starting to take over. Together with "Patricia" and "Hedwig" they are plotting to unleash a 24th personality who they believe will protect all of the other personalities with his super strength and speed, but it requires an amount of human bodies to sustain itself.

Review:

5/5 Stars

I loved this film so much, I'm not a huge fan of horror but this is not one of those films that involve ghosts so I enjoyed it very much. From beginning to end I was at the edge of my seat as well as holding on to the person next to me in case of jump scares. I noticed that everyone in the cinema was holding breath and no one dared to utter a word. Though there are parts that seemed funny to me because of how some of the personalities behave. The story was great though quite predictable, and if you listened carefully to their conversations then the ending wouldn't surprise you. Though some parts of the film really confused me and I did not understand what they meant, but those are just minor setbacks. 

 If you enjoy psycho thrillers, then this movie is for you. I highly recommend this everyone. Oh, and I will rant if James McAvoy doesn't get an award for this film.

SPOILER ALERT

It was very obvious that Casey wasn't going to get killed because "Dennis" said in the first place that those who have not suffered or those who lived an easy life were the ones who he was going to hurt or punish. And based on Casey's flashbacks, though it wasn't shown, I knew she had experienced something bad in her childhood. The scene where Casey was about to shoot her uncle really confused me, or maybe a part of the film was cut because something malicious must have been portrayed (our country's cinemas are very strict about such) so it wasn't clearly explained to me. When Casey's father died, her uncle came up to her and asked, "you aren't going to give me a hard time are you?" That line confused me even more. I though her uncle loved Casey? Why would he think of her as a burden? And the last part when the cop told Casey, "you're uncle's here" and Casey just stared at the cop and never got out of the cop car. What was that? 

Kevin's body and the 24 personalities weren't captured and there was that guy in the diner who knew what Kevin was called in the hospital. Who was that guy? My theory is he was Kevin but since Dr. Fletcher mentioned that the body can change itself depending on what the person believes, then perhaps that man was Kevin but with a different face and body form because the other personalities willed it to look like that.