Kitty Takes a Holiday
a fantasy book by Carrie Vaughn
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Overall Rating: 6/10
Meets Expectations: +1
Apparent Rating: 7/10
I loathed the second book in this series, Kitty Does DC Goes To Washington, with the author’s description of a gorgeous man as merely “Brazilian” as if all Brazilian men are the kinds who are featured on pin-up calendars of soccer players… as if “Brazilian” isn’t a type of pubic wax job. So I figured the guy was old, wrinkly, and midget-size…. I’m thinking Tattoo from Fantasy Island twenty-five years later and the author was thinking “dark-haired Fabio”. We were told that Kitty has self-respect, but she takes her Brazilian to bed right away because she can’t resist him since he’s a lycanthrope too— but he’s a were-jaguar and you wouldn’t think wolves and jaguars would mate in the wild, right? So why was her attraction uncontrollable? I really lost all respect for the author. I swore off any other books she might write. I didn’t even consider buying the third book.
The library had the book. It taunted me.
So I took it home and read it. Kitty only f**ks one guy in this book and it costs her a long-time friend. But mostly what made this so much better than the previous book is that it actually is all about her when she thinks it is. And even when the problems are about her, she’s thinking about someone besides herself. So when the author tells us that Kitty is a great person who cares about her friends and her fans, it’s somewhat believable, for once. When we’re told that Kitty has suffered, we’re actually shown some of her suffering, for once. We don’t see Kitty get viciously raped then get up and walk away but get told that she’s broken up about it.
Maybe I liked this book because it was largely about how vicious and horribly intolerant Christians are while claiming they’re nice people (they accidentally summoned a demon while trying to force a well-mannered lycanthrope from her home). That usually improves my opinion of a book.
Overall, it was a pleasant read. If the first two books had started like this one, I might not have such a horrible impression. I still doubt I will ever buy any more of Ms. Vaughn’s books since we don’t share a common vocabulary (“Brazilian!” “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”) And we don’t seem to share an understanding of what normal people consider normal behavior. So when Kitty behaves bizarrely or immorally, I’m expecting an explanation in the text from the author and it’s never there. I guess maybe the author is much younger than I am and thinks women act like they act on the television– like sluts and whores— so no explanation is needed because it’s not werewolf behavior, it’s ordinary.
I liked it surprisingly well. I think other people would consider it an average book for the genre.
