'Jackaby (Jackaby, #1)' by William Ritter, published by Algonquin Young Readers in September 2014.
Rating: 3.5 / 5 stars
Jackaby follows the journey of Abigail Rook, a British traveller, who finds herself in New England, America. She goes seeking for a job and almost instantly finds one working for a strange detective who seems to have a supernatural talent to see the paranormal.
I really looked forward to reading this book when I heard that it was a mix between
BBC's Sherlock and
Doctor Who. It is also set in the 1800's which happens to be one of my favourite time zones. After finishing this novel, I was deeply disappointed. The writing was lovely and the story line was okay, but there were quite a few things that got under my skin.
You see, while this novel is set in 1892, I constantly found myself forgetting that I was even in that time zone because of the use of modern-day language. There were also objects that appear that would not have existed in that time. This made reading this novel confusing as hell because I was constantly trying to remember which time zone this novel is actually set in. The fact that this was done was very disappointing and it helped me to more appreciate other novels that have been written in this time zone.
Luckily, all of this confusion was temporarily cured by upbeat detective, R. F. Jackaby, who happens to live a pretty interesting life. He has an eye for details and is able to see supernatural things that most other people look over. He is disliked by many people, but you will fall in love with him for his humour, wittiness and his sophisticated character.
Mr. Jackaby is one of the main characters, so where you might expect him to be the sole focus of this novel (with his name being the title and all), he isn't. Instead, we spend a lot of the time prancing around with Miss Rook as she has meaningless conversations with a ghost, experiences emotions for the cute but dull policeman, talks to a duck, and complains about what her parents might think of her.
Throughout the story, I constantly found myself wishing I was watching paint dry instead of reading such dull and pointless moments in a book that had so much potential. The inconsistency of the story line, as it constantly changes from being dull to being intense, added to my confusion and make me wish I could just find out who the killer is already so I could just be done with the book.
The main protagonist, Abigail Rook, is a boyish girl who has travelled from England into a strange land where everything is new. She finds herself a job working as an assistant for a strange man, she then proceeds to follow the man she has only known for 5 minutes to a crime scene. It is likely that this would be the first time she has ever seen a dead body considering her age, the class she grew up in, and the time zone in which she lives, but this is all forgotten as she is able to rattle off her obsevations on the dead man's surroundings. Not once does she stop and realise that this is not the life a young girl from the 1800's should be living, but instead she goes on with it like this is everyday life for her.
After about 15 chapters of the book, you will suddenly realise the characters have only been living for a day. This adds to the inaccuracy of the novel as it seems impossible that the characters could have done the amount of things they did in that amount of time. Even the great Sherlock Holmes would have struggled to complete such tasks in a day.
We should also not miss the fact that after one day of knowing each other, Miss Rook was more than happy to move into strange Mr. Jackaby's home with him and then continue to solve crimes with him.
There was just something about all this that really didn't add up to me.
Throughout the novel, I was introduced to characters that mattered so little to me that I actually forgot their names after a couple of days. While they do give the story a little more depth, they become pointless and I started to wonder why they were even added into the story when it is so obvious that Abigail is trying to be the star of the show.
This novel is one that was full of great potential, but has sadly fallen flat. The storyline was one that only kept me on the edge of my seat a few times where the rest of the time I was sitting back, bored, wondering when they would finally find the killer.
I found that most of the characters were dull and I couldn't really care less about them half the time. The only character I felt some love towards was Jackaby and it saddens me that I didn't get to know him well enough because Abigail was always stealing the spotlight away from him.
At this point, I am not sure if I will ever read the next book in the series. To be honest, I don't see the point in there needing to be a second book in the first place. There was nothing that happened at the end of this book that made me want to reach for the second book, except maybe the fact that I might see Mr. Jackaby again. Unless the storyline is made more accurate in the second book and Jackaby is actually more of an important character, then I might consider reading it.
I feel greatly let down by this novel as it was one that I was really looking forward to reading. There were many aspects that I did enjoy, but, sadly, the negatives over rule the positives in this one.
