Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Kitty Norville #1
Publication Date: November 1, 2005
ISBN: 0446616419
Page Count: 288
Summary: Kitty Norville is a midnight-shift DJ for a Denver radio station - and a werewolf in the closet. Her new late-night advice show for the supernaturally disadvantaged is a raging success, but it's Kitty who can use some help. With one sexy werewolf-hunter and a few homicidal undead on her tail, Kitty may have bitten off more than she can chew?
REVIEW
My opinion of this book, and of Kitty as a main character, changed several times during the course of the read.
At first, I was almost cringing at her submissive behaviour (even though I'd been warned and knew it was coming). To tell the whole truth it's not so much Kitty, the person, that's submissive, it's her wolf. But then, as I read along and discovered more of Kitty's personality, and also the story of how she became a werewolf in the first place, I had an epiphany as to why she might behave this way.
For starters, not everyone in this world has an aggressive nature, and Kitty as a human was a happy-go-lucky, blonde pony-tailed, cute little thing without a care in the world. Then she gets viscously attacked and her whole world gets turned upside down (This all happens prior to the events in this book, btw. Don't worry I'm not summarizing the whole plot for you). Then she has high-ranking members of her new pack decide to take her under their wing, protect her, baby and coddle her to within an inch of her life, and totally enable this behaviour she's developed of cowering, whining and hiding behind bigger, stronger people whenever she's scared. And even now at the start of this story, four years on and a lot more jaded, she's still not a particularly antagonistic person. She's laid-back, friendly, but also blunt and honest, which is what makes her so good at her radio show.
However, as the book went on Kitty is forced to look at certain aspects of her life and the things she's been allowing to happen. She says at one point something along the lines of, "In situations like these you can either be angry or scared, and I'm so sick of being scared." And that's when we start to see some real character development from her.
I really enjoyed the radio talk show parts of the book. Some of the callers were funny and Vaughn writes dialogue really well. It was very easy to imagine the tone of voice used.
"How do I get a werewolf to attack me?” “Stand in the middle of a forest under a full moon with a raw steak tied to your face, holding a sign that says, ‘Eat me; I’m stupid’?”
I enjoyed the character of Cormac, whom she meets in rather unusual circumstances. My only problem with that relationship (if you can even call it such) was the speed at which she decided to share her most private thoughts with him. She tells him (and therefore us) the whole story of how she became a wolf, something she hadn't even told her best friend within the pack, which I thought was a little strange. I hope to see more of Cormac, though. He too is a very laid-back, laconic sort of character and they have good chemistry on the page together.
By the end of the book there had been big changes for Kitty, for her pack, and for the world in general, so it felt like a set-up book in that respect, but it was definitely a nice introduction and I want to keep reading so I'm heading straight for Kitty Goes to Washington right now!
4 Stars! ★★★★
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