Julie Berry has never shied away from ambitious storytelling. From the WWI-era romance of Lovely War to the medieval persecution narrative of The Passion of Dolssa, Berry consistently pushes the boundaries of young adult historical fiction. With If Looks Could Kill, she attempts perhaps her most audacious genre fusion yet: a collision between Greek mythology, true crime history, and Victorian social reform that transforms Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror into something wholly unexpected—a story about female rage, sisterhood, and monstrous transformation.
The premise alone is breathtaking in its boldness. Autumn 1888: Jack the Ripper flees London for New York City, pursued not by Scotland Yard detectives but by an ancient force of vengeance. Meanwhile, two Salvation Army volunteers—the witty, adventurous Tabitha Woodward and the earnest, rigid Pearl Davenport—discover their mission to save souls in the Bowery’s slums takes an unexpected turn when Pearl undergoes a shocking transformation into a Medusa, complete with serpentine hair and the power to petrify men with her gaze.
The Architecture of Ambition
Berry constructs her narrative with meticulous historical scaffolding while simultaneously building a mythological framework that feels both ancient and urgently contemporary. The dual-timeline structure alternates between Pearl and Tabitha’s present-day struggles in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and flashbacks to the Ripper’s London murders, creating a narrative tension that propels readers through nearly 500 pages with surprising momentum.
The author’s research is evident on every page. From the grimy tenements of the Five Points to the brass-band evangelism of the Salvation Army, Berry recreates 1888 New York with sensory precision. The Bowery comes alive through her prose—its dime museums displaying grotesque curiosities, its concert saloons filled with both music and moral peril, its streets teeming with newsboys, immigrants, and those society would rather forget. She draws extensively from period sources, including Jacob Riis’s exposés and contemporary newspaper accounts, to ground her fantastical elements in authentic historical texture.
Yet this very ambition becomes both the novel’s greatest strength and its most significant challenge. Berry is attempting to:
- Honor the real victims of Jack the Ripper (the book is dedicated to the five canonical victims)
- Explore the mythology of Medusa as a symbol of female rage and victimhood
- Examine Victorian attitudes toward women, sexuality, and social reform
- Create a suspenseful mystery/thriller narrative
- Develop a complex friendship between two young women
- Investigate themes of faith, doubt, and moral ambiguity
This is an enormous narrative burden for any single novel to bear.
Where the Magic Works
The relationship between Tabitha and Pearl forms the emotional core of the book, and here Berry excels. Their partnership begins with mutual irritation—Tabitha finds Pearl judgmental and humorless, while Pearl considers Tabitha frivolous and insufficiently pious. But as circumstances force them together through a brothel rescue, Pearl’s transformation, and their pursuit of the Ripper, their dynamic deepens into something genuinely moving.
Berry captures the specific tensions of female friendship with remarkable nuance. Pearl’s transformation into Medusa becomes a powerful metaphor for trauma’s physical and psychological effects. When Pearl is touched by the Ripper during an accidental encounter, she begins morphing into a creature of vengeance—her hair becoming golden serpents, her eyes glowing with supernatural fury, her very presence capable of stunning or petrifying men. The transformation is not presented as purely monstrous but as both terrifying and oddly empowering, a physical manifestation of rage that society typically demands women suppress.
The novel’s treatment of the Medusa mythology is its most compelling innovation. Rather than a singular cursed woman, Berry imagines Medusas as women transformed by encounters with particularly vile men—a kind of mystical reaction to male violence. Miss Stella, an elderly Medusa who becomes Pearl’s mentor, explains that the transformation is both gift and curse, a power that emerges from victimization but also offers the possibility of justice.
The brothel rescue sequence demonstrates Berry’s skill at orchestrating action. When Tabitha and Pearl, aided by aspiring journalist Freyda and Irish bartender Mike O’Keefe, storm Mother Rosie Hertzfeld’s establishment to save two young women, the tension escalates beautifully. Pearl’s first use of her powers—stunning multiple armed men with a mere glance—is both thrilling and horrifying, especially as Tabitha realizes her companion has become something simultaneously monstrous and magnificent.
Where the Seams Show
However, the structural ambitions of If Looks Could Kill occasionally overwhelm its execution. The pacing suffers from Berry’s determination to do justice to multiple storylines. The Ripper’s sections, told in close third person, attempt to humanize a monster by showing Francis Tumblety’s desperation regarding his failing health and his twisted theosophical belief that harvesting organs from “almost-living” female bodies might cure him. While this provides motive, these passages sometimes feel clinical rather than genuinely chilling, and the repeated emphasis on his suffering can inadvertently create uncomfortable sympathy for a character whose actions deserve none.
The theological and philosophical discussions, particularly Pearl’s crisis of faith as she grapples with her transformation, occasionally slow the narrative momentum. Berry is deeply interested in questions of justice versus mercy, vengeance versus forgiveness, but these meditations sometimes read more like essay than story. When Pearl confronts the man who assaulted her years earlier on her family’s farm, she chooses mercy at the crucial moment—a decision meant to demonstrate her retained humanity but which may frustrate readers hoping for cathartic retribution.
The climactic confrontation between Pearl and the Ripper in a burning basement, while suspenseful, resolves somewhat ambiguously. Pearl wounds him grievously and curses him with visions of his victims, but he escapes—historically accurate, as the real Ripper was never caught, but narratively unsatisfying for readers expecting definitive closure. The novel prioritizes thematic resolution (Pearl choosing not to become a murderer) over plot satisfaction (the villain’s defeat).
The Prose: Berry’s Trademark Voice
Berry writes with a distinctive combination of historical authenticity and contemporary accessibility. She adopts a slightly formal, period-appropriate narrative voice while maintaining emotional immediacy and occasional wry humor. Tabitha’s first-person sections crackle with personality—her observations about Salvation Army work, Manhattan society, and her own conflicted feelings about faith and duty feel authentic to both character and era.
The dialogue deserves particular praise. Berry captures distinct voices for each character: Mike’s Irish inflections without resorting to caricature, Pearl’s earnest religiosity that gradually fractures under the weight of her transformation, Tabitha’s sharp wit that masks deeper insecurities. The conversations between Tabitha and Pearl feel genuine, capturing both the friction and the growing affection between two very different young women.
Historical Fiction Meets Social Commentary
In If Looks Could Kill, Berry uses her 1888 setting to examine issues that remain disturbingly relevant. The novel’s depiction of sex trafficking, women’s vulnerability to male violence, and society’s tendency to blame victims rather than perpetrators resonates with contemporary movements like #MeToo. The Salvation Army’s work among Manhattan’s poorest populations highlights both genuine charitable impulses and the sometimes-patronizing attitudes of middle-class reformers.
The portrayal of Mother Rosie Hertzfeld’s brothel operation is unflinching in its depiction of exploitation while avoiding prurient detail. Berry makes clear that the young women trapped there—including Cora and Freyda—are victims of a system that offers them few alternatives. The rescue mission becomes more than plot device; it’s an examination of how women help each other survive in a world designed to exploit them.
Mythology Reimagined
The most radical proposition of If Looks Could Kill is its reconceptualization of Medusa not as a singular mythological figure but as a recurring phenomenon—a transformation that can happen to any woman who encounters particular kinds of male evil. This iteration of the myth emphasizes sisterhood among the Medusas, with Miss Stella acting as both mentor and cautionary tale about what decades of living with such power can do to a person.
Berry doesn’t shy away from the darker implications of her mythology. Pearl’s Medusa state brings not just power but also a frightening loss of control and humanity. The serpents have their own consciousness, the transformations come unbidden, and Pearl must constantly fight against her more monstrous impulses. The power to petrify men feels less like justice and more like a burden Pearl never asked for—which is, of course, precisely Berry’s point about trauma and its aftermath.
Supporting Cast and Setting
The secondary characters add texture and depth to Berry’s Manhattan. Mike O’Keefe, the Irish bartender with political ambitions and a good heart, could have been a simple love interest but instead becomes a genuine ally whose own character arc matters. Freyda Gorbady, the Jewish immigrant girl desperate to break into journalism, brings humor and determination to the story. Even minor characters like newsboy Oscar and various Salvation Army officers feel like real people with their own motivations beyond advancing the plot.
The historical setting is rendered with impressive detail—from the specifics of Salvation Army protocol to the architecture of Lower East Side tenements to the social hierarchies of 1888 New York. Berry clearly did extensive research, drawing from period newspapers, social reform documents, and historical accounts of both the Salvation Army and the Bowery’s underworld. Her author’s note and bibliography demonstrate the scholarly foundation underlying her fantastical elements.
For Readers Seeking Similar Tales
Readers who appreciate Berry’s fusion of history and fantasy in If Looks Could Kill might also enjoy:
- The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman (Victorian setting with fantastical elements)
- The Diviners series by Libba Bray (1920s New York with supernatural mystery)
- The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty (historical setting with rich mythology)
- These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong (1920s Shanghai with monster elements)
- Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco (YA historical thriller centered on the Ripper murders)
Final Assessment
If Looks Could Kill is an imperfect but fascinating novel that attempts something genuinely daring. Berry deserves credit for taking significant risks with form, genre, and subject matter. The book succeeds most when focusing on the friendship between Tabitha and Pearl, the vivid recreation of 1888 Manhattan, and the reimagining of Medusa as a symbol of female rage born from male violence.
Where it stumbles is in trying to balance too many narrative priorities simultaneously. The pacing suffers from the weight of its themes, some sequences feel overextended while others rush past too quickly, and the ending’s ambiguity may disappoint readers expecting clearer resolution.
Yet there is something admirable about Berry’s refusal to simplify. She insists that her readers sit with complexity—that justice and mercy can coexist, that monsters can be made rather than born, that women’s anger is both righteous and dangerous, that faith can survive doubt but never emerges unchanged. These are sophisticated themes handled with intelligence if not always perfect grace.
For readers willing to embrace its ambitious fusion of genres and accept its occasional narrative sprawl, If Looks Could Kill offers a unique and thought-provoking experience. It’s a book that treats both history and mythology with respect while using both to explore timeless questions about power, victimhood, and the possibility of justice in an unjust world.
A Note on This Review
The publisher graciously provided me with an advance copy of this book, sliding it across a table much like Tabitha might have distributed War Cry newspapers in a Bowery saloon—though hopefully with less risk of serpentine transformation. This review represents my honest opinion, crafted after reading every word of Pearl and Tabitha’s extraordinary journey. No snakes were harmed in the writing of this review, though my preconceptions about genre boundaries certainly were.