Kitty Takes a Holiday

Kitty Takes a Holiday (2007) Carrie Vaughn

After being outed on national television as a werewolf, Kitty has gone to the mountains to recover and–theoretically–write a book.

Trouble was, you could get away from society and learn to be self-reliant, like Thoreau advocated. Turn your nose up at the rat race. But you couldn’t escape yourself, your own doubts, your own conscience.

But even Ben, her lawyer, thinks she’s running away.

“From this end it looks like you’re quitting.”

I looked away. I’d been comparing myself to Thoreau because he made running away to the woods sound so noble. It was still running away.

But even running away, Kitty can’t escape trouble. Someone is trying to curse her, and then Cormac shows up with Ben, who has been infected by a werewolf.

One of the things I especially like about this story is that just when you think things are over, they really aren’t, but not in a dead-monster-coming-to-life way.

Cormac has been skirting the law for years, and doing a lot of illegal things to keep the world safe from monsters. Which makes it all the more fascinating to see him in the legal justice system for doing just that–killing a monster.

It’s also a closer look at a subject that’s been covered by other writers of supernatural fantasy–that the current justice system isn’t set up to deal with supernatural creatures. What I find most fascinating is how it all comes down to fear and reactionism. Well, fascinating and terrifying, how people are willing to apply the label of other and then claim that rights don’t apply to the other.

Once again I’d forgotten how much these stories look at justice and nativism and how we treat the other. I’m very glad I’m rereading these books before moving onto the final story (which I’ve been sitting on for a ridiculously long time).
Rating: 8.5/10

Published by Grand Central Publishing

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