Review: Spectacle

Spectacle 
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Paris, 1887.

Sixteen-year-old Nathalie Baudin writes the daily morgue column for Le Petit Journal. Her job is to summarize each day's new arrivals, a task she finds both fascinating and routine. That is, until the day she has a vision of the newest body, a young woman, being murdered--from the perspective of the murderer himself.

When the body of another woman is retrieved from the Seine days later, Paris begins to buzz with rumors that this victim may not be the last. Nathalie's search for answers sends her down a long, twisty road involving her mentally ill aunt, a brilliant but deluded scientist, and eventually into the Parisian Catacombs. As the killer continues to haunt the streets of Paris, it becomes clear that Nathalie's strange new ability may make her the only one who can discover the killer's identity--and she'll have to do it before she becomes a target herself. 

I love a good historical murder mystery, but I love it even more when it's mixed in with intriguing powers. Spectacle is occasionally gruesome with a delightfully morbid, and therefore fresh female lead. 

The opening of the book had me shook because quite frankly, I recently visited Paris and Notre Dame Cathedral so I was shook to think there was...and possibly still is, a morgue behind it that you could go in to, back in the day, and just look at the bodies?! Mind blowing. I was actually living for the setting and seeing familiar places that I'd visited thrown back to 1887...plus this book allowed me to actually go down in to the Catacombs which is the one thing I didn't get to do! 

But most importantly the first chapter had me hooked! Not just because of the setting, but by the way Nathalie's power worked, and her job and then the final sentence of the chapter, I was like "okaaaaay, I'm gonna need to know what the deal is here!".

I was fascinated by Nathalie as a character for multiple reasons. I was fascinated by her job, she writes the morgue report for a paper, and for her age I was surprised she had such a job. I was fascinated by the fact she's a little bit morbid, but not in a bad way. Besides this whole "going to the morgue to look at bodies" thing appears to have been a genuine past time in Paris back in the day. Which is wild on so many levels. But she's inquisitive and I found her to be really relatable and her reactions to finding out about her power and it's consequences were actually realistic and believable, as was the power itself to be honest. 

Speaking of Nathalie's power, I was fascinated by it because she see's everything in reverse and it's all silent although her power does morph over the course of the book and the visions do change alongside that the more she uses it and so on, but she see's from the killer's perspective as well. Most importantly, however, is the consequence of Nathalie's power. I loved that aspect, because we read so many books that have the characters getting these cool powers and they just have them because, whereas this is an original and fresh take on things. Or at least I thought so. I just loved that the powers are to do with a crazy, genius doctor, and there are consequences to using the powers. Plus considering Nathalie's power, and the plot it makes the particular consequence Nathalie has even more fascinating. 

As for our supporting characters, we have Christophe, who I was so hoping wasn't going to be an ass. Meaning on the one hand I was hoping Nathalie would trust him and open up to him, and on the other I was worried he wasn't what he seemed. I did end up quite liking him, he was an ear to listen to her, he tried his best to protect her and yeah...I started to ship it okay. But then he mentions something and I was like OF COURSE. 

Agnes I really loved, she was the friend Nathalie needed to help her sort through things, and to keep her cheerful and to tell her everything's okay and offer a different perspective on her gift. She was basically just supportive and I liked her a lot better than Simone initially. With Simone, I wasn't too sure of her at first, but I can't tell how much of that is because I was feeling what Nathalie was feeling as it was from her perspective. I did end up really liking Simone by the end though, she was there for Nathalie after the initial hiccup, hell she chased after her when she was chasing a killer! The portrayal of their friendship and their argument and the aftermath of it and the reconciliation etc was another really well done aspect, it was so accurate. Zdrok really does portray some excellent strong female friendships in this book.

Spectacle really did just keep me on my toes. It had so many brilliant elements brought in, and so many twists and turns. I knew this was going to be on the slightly unreal side thanks to Nathalie's power, but I wasn't expecting the introduction of Henard and the Insightfuls and I'm looking forward to that being explored more in the sequel, hopefully! 

The mystery though, is what kept me on my toes the most. It was so twisty, I started to get an idea of what the murder was and I was slowly putting a few pieces together but there were just so many twists that shocked me and that I didn't see coming, like what happened with the killer?! But not only that, before we found out who the killer was there were a few times I was reading like "maybe they're the killer" or "no way don't tell me he's something to do with it!?", from the way it was written or Nathalie perceived something, and the chapter's that ended on cliffhangers didn't help things! I also didn't see what happened after the thing with the killer...I just, it's a wild ride, okay guys? 

Spectacle allowed me to get lost in to the world of 1887 Paris, with the odd creepy interlude thanks to the visions and the incident with the blood jar. I was sucked in to the mystery, and not just the serial killer, but the mystery of Nathalie's aunt and the Insightfuls and trying to figure all of that out. Zdrok has made it very, very hard to put her book down, and I binge read the entire thing in one go, shrieking about plot twists as I went. 

Spectacle also completely broke my heart. To be fair I did have a sense of foreboding and a sense that a certain event was coming because of the way Nathalie felt at one point, and I could picture a montage of that afternoon, but one of the victims had me screeching NOOOOOO because why....just why!? Did we have to!? I know we had to have Nathalie resolve to use her powers but...whyyyyy! Although that did present us with yet another mystery, but this one is left open for the next book unless it was just the killer's crazy talk!  

There were a couple of little things with this that had me rate it down a star. I was sad that Christophe was there as a love interest, seemingly waiting for a subtle side romance to start off because of Nathalie's feelings and the mentions of her feelings for him, but it never did. Of course there's no saying that it won't come in to play in the sequel, as it would seem a little bit pointless otherwise. I do feel like a couple of things could have been fleshed out a bit more, Henard and his experiments for one. I also feel a little like, while the book did intrigue me from the start, the pace was a little slow to start. However, like I said, the mystery aspects did keep me turning the pages. 

As for the ending, it was brilliant! The price of her gift has escalated and I was genuinely shrieking "OMG" out loud and then...it just ended!? I do feel like it was a little bit abrupt, although a good cliffhanger. A load of questions were answered and pretty much everything was resolved, however a few things were left unresolved ready for us to address them in the sequel, and I'm looking forward to it! 

Spectacle is a strong debut, there's a few minor issues but honestly? They're mostly down to me I think! The plot is twisty and has plenty of mystery elements, Nathalie is an intriguing and morbid, yet relatable, main character, and I loved the strong female friendships throughout the book! As well as the way Zdrok pulled you in to Paris at the time of the books setting, and I can't wait to pick up the sequel!