Stray by Rachel Vincent
Dec. 19th, 2009 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
There are only eight breeding female werecats left ...
And I’m one of them.
I look like an all-American grad student. But I am a werecat, a shape-shifter, and I live in two worlds.
Despite reservations from my family and my Pride, I escaped the pressure to continue my species and carved out a normal life for myself. Until the night a Stray attacked.
I’d been warned about Strays – werecats without a Pride, constantly on the lookout for someone like me: attractive, female and fertile. I fought him off, but then learned two of my fellow tabbies had disappeared.
This brush with danger was all my Pride needed to summon me back ... for my own protection. Yeah, right. But I’m no meek kitty. I’ll take on whatever – and whoever – I have to in order to find my friends. Watch out, Strays – ‘cause I got claws, and I’m not afraid to use them.
Faythe is studying for an MA in English Literature and is one of only 8 female Werecats (Tabbies) in the USA. Determined to escape the traditional Tabby role of breeder to the male-dominated Prides, she is angry when her father summons her back to the family ranch after being attacked by a Stray (a Werecat who doesn’t belong to a Pride).
Someone has kidnapped two of the other Tabbies from under the nose of their Prides and Faythe’s under orders to remain in the ranch until the Tabbies – and the culprits – are found. Faythe has other ideas – not least because being at the ranch means being around her ex-lover Marc, a Stray taken in by her father’s Pride and who now leads their Enforcers. Desperate both to get back to her own life and to find the two women who are her friends, Faythe joins the search, little knowing that doing so will put her own life in jeopardy.
Vincent has produced a carefully constructed urban fantasy world and her attention to detail in depicting the Werecats’ world, with their Prides, territories and South American history is intriguing. Unfortunately this novel stands and falls on the strength and likeability of the main character and for all her protestations of being an independent, ass-kicking Werecat, for me Faythe never rose above the pathetic.
Although physically tough, Faythe frequently shows poor judgment and recklessness – within the opening pages she’s following an unknown adversary into a dark alleyway without any support. Petulant and prone to temper tantrums, she abuses the power she has over those lower down in the Pride - particularly, Jace, who she knows is attracted to her. She wants her own life but she wants her family to fund it and it’s telling that once she leaves college, she never bothers trying to keep track of her studies. The only time she is sympathetic is when she takes revenge on Marc for rubbing his scent on her while they are in cat form because Marc is a bully who abuses his dominance over the other Enforcers by physically abusing them. It’s never clear why he loves Faythe but they’re both so awful that they deserve each other.
The most distasteful thing in the book though is the portrayal of rape with Vincent seeking to emphasise how it can ruin the life of its victims and yet showing a rape victim cheering up and behaving normally after a shopping trip.
This is a shame because the set-up really is interesting, but I’m not sure I’d want to read on when the heroine is such a twit.
The Verdict:
Although the world-building here is careful and well thought-out, the same cannot be said for characterisation. With Faythe, Vincent has mistaken physical strength for character strength and the result is someone who is a narcissistic, petulant ninny and certainly not someone I’m in a hurry to read more about.
And I’m one of them.
I look like an all-American grad student. But I am a werecat, a shape-shifter, and I live in two worlds.
Despite reservations from my family and my Pride, I escaped the pressure to continue my species and carved out a normal life for myself. Until the night a Stray attacked.
I’d been warned about Strays – werecats without a Pride, constantly on the lookout for someone like me: attractive, female and fertile. I fought him off, but then learned two of my fellow tabbies had disappeared.
This brush with danger was all my Pride needed to summon me back ... for my own protection. Yeah, right. But I’m no meek kitty. I’ll take on whatever – and whoever – I have to in order to find my friends. Watch out, Strays – ‘cause I got claws, and I’m not afraid to use them.
Faythe is studying for an MA in English Literature and is one of only 8 female Werecats (Tabbies) in the USA. Determined to escape the traditional Tabby role of breeder to the male-dominated Prides, she is angry when her father summons her back to the family ranch after being attacked by a Stray (a Werecat who doesn’t belong to a Pride).
Someone has kidnapped two of the other Tabbies from under the nose of their Prides and Faythe’s under orders to remain in the ranch until the Tabbies – and the culprits – are found. Faythe has other ideas – not least because being at the ranch means being around her ex-lover Marc, a Stray taken in by her father’s Pride and who now leads their Enforcers. Desperate both to get back to her own life and to find the two women who are her friends, Faythe joins the search, little knowing that doing so will put her own life in jeopardy.
Vincent has produced a carefully constructed urban fantasy world and her attention to detail in depicting the Werecats’ world, with their Prides, territories and South American history is intriguing. Unfortunately this novel stands and falls on the strength and likeability of the main character and for all her protestations of being an independent, ass-kicking Werecat, for me Faythe never rose above the pathetic.
Although physically tough, Faythe frequently shows poor judgment and recklessness – within the opening pages she’s following an unknown adversary into a dark alleyway without any support. Petulant and prone to temper tantrums, she abuses the power she has over those lower down in the Pride - particularly, Jace, who she knows is attracted to her. She wants her own life but she wants her family to fund it and it’s telling that once she leaves college, she never bothers trying to keep track of her studies. The only time she is sympathetic is when she takes revenge on Marc for rubbing his scent on her while they are in cat form because Marc is a bully who abuses his dominance over the other Enforcers by physically abusing them. It’s never clear why he loves Faythe but they’re both so awful that they deserve each other.
The most distasteful thing in the book though is the portrayal of rape with Vincent seeking to emphasise how it can ruin the life of its victims and yet showing a rape victim cheering up and behaving normally after a shopping trip.
This is a shame because the set-up really is interesting, but I’m not sure I’d want to read on when the heroine is such a twit.
The Verdict:
Although the world-building here is careful and well thought-out, the same cannot be said for characterisation. With Faythe, Vincent has mistaken physical strength for character strength and the result is someone who is a narcissistic, petulant ninny and certainly not someone I’m in a hurry to read more about.
