The Monster Inside Us All

Aleah Kearsley

Jackaby

By, William Ritter

Does your lack of sleep ever turn you into a monster? Do you ever feel as though you aren’t your human self and you just can’t function? Well for Detective Cane lack of sleep means more than you think. His bedhead extends all over his body and his yawn is a howl. For Detective Cane lack of sleep actually turns him into a monster.

In a small town one day, a lady by the name of Abigail Rook came in search for a new job. It just so happened that on that same day Jackaby was in search of an assistant. The two became coworkers working at Jackaby’s supernatural detective agency. Their first assignment as co-workers is to figure out their beloved town’s murderer. Knowing that everything is not what it seems, Jackaby would look rather eccentric with his many tools to find the other-worldly creature known as their serial killer. Although in some places they ” doubted very much if any significant clues would present themselves”(63), some clues led them to find more than just the murderer. People were killed, sparks flew, and new friendships were made all over the span of just a couple of days.

At the beginning of the book, I was a little bored. It started with Rook getting settled into her new job and the clues led nowhere. I was asking myself, “What are we looking for, exactly?”(53). I couldn’t find the reason for the slow beginning and why the author just didn’t move the book along already. During the middle of the book, things started to pick up. It wasn’t the same predictable thing after another. Actions started to have consequences, more characters started to get involved, and things really started to pick up and got “interesting”(203). In the second half of the book, there was a lot of suspense and plot twists happening that kept me on the edge of my seat. The events in the second half of the book made me forget about the first half while reading because the events that happen were so impactful. I also liked a lot how all the characters had strong relationships with each other that were very apparent to the reader. Each character had a different relationship with each other and no two relationships were alike. I also liked how the book plays on the theme everything is not what it seems and stick to your beliefs. No matter how much Jackaby was ridiculed for the stuff he did, he saw the truth and in the end, it paid off and he was right. This is very relatable to real life because not everyone sees the truth and the people that do are sometimes made fun of for it. I like how this was represented in the book from beginning to end.

I would give this book a 4/5 for its slow start but its great second half. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes sci-fi and mystery. The book includes many supernatural creatures such as banshees, goblins, werewolves, and more. It even includes some background on them. Also if you like murder mysteries this is also a book for you. If you are impatient or a slow reader this book might get boring quick. I hope you enjoy it as much or more than I did.