Review: Stray by Rachel Vincent
SYNOPSIS: 
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…
REVIEW:
I can’t say I particularly enjoyed this book and I am kinda of puzzled as to why it came so highly recommended to my by friends because I have so many issues with the story and its characters. Now first let me start off by saying, I love a good shifter book, so I had high hopes going in that I would love this story. Especially because Faythe sounds like a straight up bad*ss in the synopsis. But I have two major issues with this story, and I will elaborate on both below.
First off, Faythe is one of the most selfish, self-centered, narcissistic characters I have ever encountered. I can’t stand her, the world literally has to revolve around her and if its not, she does something stupid so the focus is back on her. Her reckless behavior, lack of responsibility, and childish antics had me fuming. Tabbies are being murders but Faythe wants out of the Pack and her own freedom. Faythe doesn’t want someone, so she makes out with another person to make them jealous. People are grieving death, Faythe is gonna get drunk and act like a lush. The whole novel is filled with examples like this where Faythe is literally the worst f*ckin kind of person. There is a law you can’t attack humans, oops Faythe almost does but don’t worry, no one would rat this rotten princess out. I don’t understand how anyone can find this spoiled brat relate-able, she needs to the sh*t kicked out her, repetitively, maybe then it would knock some sense into her.
My second vice is the flow of the plot. The plot seems very choppy and doesn’t read smoothly. It would jump from death and grieving to sex in a matter of pages. It was almost as if Rachel didn’t know how to make transitions between scenes so she just slapped them in anyways and called it a day. This did not make for a smooth transition in the story. The storyline jumped around as much as Faythe’s mood.
In all honesty, by 56% I was so annoyed and furious with Faythe it was hard to finish the book. There was also an excess of descriptions in the story and a lot of inner monologue and I could have done without. Towards the end I started skimming just for conversations because this book is dragged out so long. It could have been 80-100 pages shorter if you removed the boring *ss descriptions. Definitely won’t be reading the next one.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
