Crosspost: Shifters #1 - Stray by Rachel Vincent
Originally written, August 17, 2015. Crossposted from here.
Title: Stray
Author: Rachel Vincent
Year of Publication: 2007
Series: Shifters
#: 1
Goodreads Rating (Avg.): 3.81
Goodreads Rating (Mine): 2
SPOILERS
Plot Description: Faythe Sanders is a female werecat and a rebel. Her happy go lucky days at college come to an end when it becomes known that there's a rogue werecat out there kidnapping tabbies - female werecats. Faythe's family bring her home to keep her safe, but she ends up running into the kidnappers anyway, leaving it up to her to save herself and her cousin.
Despite my Goodreads rating of 2/5, this will not be a Negative Review. There will, however, be a lot of ranting. Brace yourselves, please.
Stray had me extremely conflicted. I think it had something to do with the combination of an extremely repressive and patriarchal environment, a spirited, rebellious and irrepressible female protagonist, and the fact that I tend to react very violently even towards depictions of paternalism. This last is due to my personal experiences, which have acted as a trigger for me more than once in the course of reading and reviewing novels in the Young Adult fiction category.
So it should come as no surprise that I spent the first half of this novel swearing loudly at it.
At first I thought Stray was one of those novels that you reject out of hand and warn other readers away from. But then I couldn't stop reading until I'd finished Alpha, book six in this series. Stray - and the Shifters series - is a mixed bag. It has its good points. And it has bad points as well. And not in a salvageable, let's close our eyes and we can forget all about it kind of way. It's actually so bad that the bad aspects of it tend to thoroughly negate any good the book might have done.
But let's start at the beginning. Faythe Sanders is the coolest kind of rebel - she fought her family for her right to attend college, instead of staying home like a good little tabby and fulfilling her life's objective - marry a competent Alpha-in-training and start makin' babies.
This hard won right, sadly enough, is taken away right at the beginning of Stray, when Faythe is ordered to come home because there seems to be a kidnapper who's targeting tabbies on the loose. Now, girl-nappers would be a problem in any scenario you could imagine, but the reason they're such a problem is that there are only eight - EIGHT! - tabbies of baby making age in all of North America at the moment. This fact is drilled into our heads time and time again, until you're just about ready to smash a screwdriver into the head of the next person to mention the 4:1 tom to tabby ratio. The low frequency of female werecats being born gives the werecat population the perfect reason to turn their society into an ultra patriarchal hellhole. The women are over-protected and severely sheltered because the Prides are matrilineal yet patriarchal. That is to say, control of a Pride can only pass through the Pride's (sole) daughter, but that actual control goes to the guy who marries her to become the Alpha. Losing your daughter - or not having one - means losing control of your territory and seeing it pass to another Alpha or Alphas after your death (or deposition). This is turn means the women only marry Alphas, and that they keep having babies until they produce a female heir. The whole thing is so f#$%d up that I'd be shocked, except for the fact that I have seen similar (patriarchal and patrilineal) systems up close.
Here marks the start of the paternalism rant. Faythe's dad is the Alpha of her Pride, and she's the heir. Her father's concern for her is doubly the function of his role as a dad, as well as his role as the Alpha of his Pride. Now, even if someone's daughter was in actual danger, I wouldn't be very comfortable with her parents using actual force to bring her home. And yet that's exactly what happens right in the second chapter.
Faythe is attacked by one of the kidnappers before she even realizes there's a kidnapping plot afoot.
She breaks the guy's nose and sends him on his way. It is just as she's done with the rogue werecat that Marc appears on the scene. Marc Ramos is Faythe's father's second in command - and her ex. Seriously, she left him at the altar - and this was BEFORE she went to college. Now you know I haven't been exaggerating the stay home, get married, have kids rigmarole.
Faythe's college education was something she fought tooth and nail for, and it doesn't come without strings attached. Her father has always ensured that there's at least one of his enforcers - mostly one of her many brothers or their friends - skulking around her college campus, ensuring her safety.
Which makes sense, I guess, in light of the kidnappings. But he's always been careful to keep Marc out of the way, knowing how she feels about Marc.
How does she feel about Marc?
Faythe - and eventually the reader - has a love-hate relationship with Marc. He was her high school boyfriend and prom date. He was her fiance, once upon a time. Clearly, she must have had strong feelings for him. And she does. I cannot, however, for the world of me, fathom why.
Marc Ramos is hypermasculine and uber-aggressive. He has a jealous streak five miles wide, and is extremely possessive of her. Since their break up, Marc hasn't dated anyone else. He hasn't even tried to move on. He's, in my opinion, WEIRD.
AND CREEPY.
Seriously, I get that your ex boyfriend being able to smell the fact that you had sex with your current boyfriend just from being around your bed is one of the occupational hazards of a story about werecats. But if your ex is going to get so angry that you're borderline afraid of what would happen if he were to sniff your secrets out...
Run, girl. Run.
Because that's not one of the occupational hazards of a story about werecats, although the author does try to present it that way. Faythe believes that Marc's ugly possessiveness and jealousy stem from his feline nature. Cats are territorial, after all. Male cats would fight each other for control over the females. In fact, male cats in the wild have been known to starve females in their territory in an effort to get the females to mate with them. One documentary I once watched showed a starving female cat (I think it was a leopard) unwilling to mate with the aggressor males because she already had a litter - cubs who would be killed by those males in order to ensure their own progeny a fighting chance.
So yes, cats are wild. But a werecat isn't just feline - he's also human. He has a brain, doesn't he? Use it, Marc. USE YOUR F****G BRAIN! She's not your f****g property.
Despite the frequency with which I shouted this message at Marc Ramos throughout the series, he refused to get it. And this is the big failure in the Shifters series. This guy - Marc Ramos.
The books are never completely able to explain Faythe's love for Marc. I mean, sure, he's a stand up guy as long as he's secure in his relationship with Faythe. He doesn't suffer from Christian Grey Syndrome (aside from the emotional abuse) - he doesn't see her as weak or pathetic or responsible for the bad things that happen to her. He respects her abilities as a fighter and a leader. He respects her as alpha. Good. Good for him. But he’s an obnoxious ass, and nothing can change that.
It's weird and f-d up, because Marc is crazy chivalrous. He'd never hit a woman. However, he has no issues whatsoever with breaking every bone in the body of any tomcat that dares touch her. If something bad happens to her, he finds someone to blame, and punishes them in brutal fashion.
So here’s the deal with good boyfriends. If they’re sweet and loving and caring and affectionate AS LONG AS they’re getting what they want, but they’re COMPLETE assholes the minute they’re denied their ‘rightful possession’ – i.e. you – then they’re not the one, honey. THEY’RE SO NOT THE ONE.
So why does Faythe love him? Is it because her father and her brothers and her mother and MARC narrowed her horizons for her? Because they convinced her that the Pride was her whole life and Marc was her only plausible future?
Faythe herself isn't perfect. A lot of GR reviewers have pointed out her penchant for ill timed 'tantrums'. When people around you - and you yourself - are in danger, that is not the time to affirm your independence, they say. Survive first, then be independent. The same people also point out that despite her repeated demands for freedom, she's had no problem living on her dad's money for five years.
[There was also that one reviewer who was appalled that Faythe was rebelling against "Family and Responsibility" and called Faythe a 'cheating whore', but I'll discount her.]
Here's the thing about those reviewers: I don't think any of them have ever experienced actual loss of freedom. I doubt they know what it means to be emotionally brainwashed from birth, to be financially hobbled, and actually, physically restrained from leaving your house. I don't think they know how that feels.
It feels like dying. It feels like being smothered to death or buried alive. For those people calling Faythe 'daddy's spoilt little princess', please allow me to remind you that her Daddy locked her in A CAGE. For wanting to go to college. For not wanting to be a teen bride.
A CAGE.
She's not a brat, she's a survivor of abuse. She's not throwing a 'tantrum', she's desperately and instinctively reacting to remembered - and potential - trauma. To someone like that, independence is paramount. Yes, even above her life.
Stray is definitely a conflicting read. I get the feeling that the wildcats are super patriarchal because maybe Rachel Vincent wanted to stage her own version of a feminist revolution. I get that tabbies are rare and thus all those idiotic toms tend to treat them like an endangered resource – locking them up. I get that Faythe has to fight the system and prove herself the best - which she actually (eventually) does. But having her date someone like Marc ruins all of that, which I deeply regret.
Title: Stray
Author: Rachel Vincent
Year of Publication: 2007
Series: Shifters
#: 1
Goodreads Rating (Avg.): 3.81
Goodreads Rating (Mine): 2
 |
| I find this cover disturbing rather than alluring. If you have a strong female protagonist, the least you can do is show her face. |
SPOILERS
Plot Description: Faythe Sanders is a female werecat and a rebel. Her happy go lucky days at college come to an end when it becomes known that there's a rogue werecat out there kidnapping tabbies - female werecats. Faythe's family bring her home to keep her safe, but she ends up running into the kidnappers anyway, leaving it up to her to save herself and her cousin.
Despite my Goodreads rating of 2/5, this will not be a Negative Review. There will, however, be a lot of ranting. Brace yourselves, please.
Stray had me extremely conflicted. I think it had something to do with the combination of an extremely repressive and patriarchal environment, a spirited, rebellious and irrepressible female protagonist, and the fact that I tend to react very violently even towards depictions of paternalism. This last is due to my personal experiences, which have acted as a trigger for me more than once in the course of reading and reviewing novels in the Young Adult fiction category.
So it should come as no surprise that I spent the first half of this novel swearing loudly at it.
At first I thought Stray was one of those novels that you reject out of hand and warn other readers away from. But then I couldn't stop reading until I'd finished Alpha, book six in this series. Stray - and the Shifters series - is a mixed bag. It has its good points. And it has bad points as well. And not in a salvageable, let's close our eyes and we can forget all about it kind of way. It's actually so bad that the bad aspects of it tend to thoroughly negate any good the book might have done.
But let's start at the beginning. Faythe Sanders is the coolest kind of rebel - she fought her family for her right to attend college, instead of staying home like a good little tabby and fulfilling her life's objective - marry a competent Alpha-in-training and start makin' babies.
This hard won right, sadly enough, is taken away right at the beginning of Stray, when Faythe is ordered to come home because there seems to be a kidnapper who's targeting tabbies on the loose. Now, girl-nappers would be a problem in any scenario you could imagine, but the reason they're such a problem is that there are only eight - EIGHT! - tabbies of baby making age in all of North America at the moment. This fact is drilled into our heads time and time again, until you're just about ready to smash a screwdriver into the head of the next person to mention the 4:1 tom to tabby ratio. The low frequency of female werecats being born gives the werecat population the perfect reason to turn their society into an ultra patriarchal hellhole. The women are over-protected and severely sheltered because the Prides are matrilineal yet patriarchal. That is to say, control of a Pride can only pass through the Pride's (sole) daughter, but that actual control goes to the guy who marries her to become the Alpha. Losing your daughter - or not having one - means losing control of your territory and seeing it pass to another Alpha or Alphas after your death (or deposition). This is turn means the women only marry Alphas, and that they keep having babies until they produce a female heir. The whole thing is so f#$%d up that I'd be shocked, except for the fact that I have seen similar (patriarchal and patrilineal) systems up close.
Here marks the start of the paternalism rant. Faythe's dad is the Alpha of her Pride, and she's the heir. Her father's concern for her is doubly the function of his role as a dad, as well as his role as the Alpha of his Pride. Now, even if someone's daughter was in actual danger, I wouldn't be very comfortable with her parents using actual force to bring her home. And yet that's exactly what happens right in the second chapter.
Faythe is attacked by one of the kidnappers before she even realizes there's a kidnapping plot afoot.
She breaks the guy's nose and sends him on his way. It is just as she's done with the rogue werecat that Marc appears on the scene. Marc Ramos is Faythe's father's second in command - and her ex. Seriously, she left him at the altar - and this was BEFORE she went to college. Now you know I haven't been exaggerating the stay home, get married, have kids rigmarole.
Faythe's college education was something she fought tooth and nail for, and it doesn't come without strings attached. Her father has always ensured that there's at least one of his enforcers - mostly one of her many brothers or their friends - skulking around her college campus, ensuring her safety.
Which makes sense, I guess, in light of the kidnappings. But he's always been careful to keep Marc out of the way, knowing how she feels about Marc.
How does she feel about Marc?
Faythe - and eventually the reader - has a love-hate relationship with Marc. He was her high school boyfriend and prom date. He was her fiance, once upon a time. Clearly, she must have had strong feelings for him. And she does. I cannot, however, for the world of me, fathom why.
Marc Ramos is hypermasculine and uber-aggressive. He has a jealous streak five miles wide, and is extremely possessive of her. Since their break up, Marc hasn't dated anyone else. He hasn't even tried to move on. He's, in my opinion, WEIRD.
AND CREEPY.
Seriously, I get that your ex boyfriend being able to smell the fact that you had sex with your current boyfriend just from being around your bed is one of the occupational hazards of a story about werecats. But if your ex is going to get so angry that you're borderline afraid of what would happen if he were to sniff your secrets out...
Run, girl. Run.
Because that's not one of the occupational hazards of a story about werecats, although the author does try to present it that way. Faythe believes that Marc's ugly possessiveness and jealousy stem from his feline nature. Cats are territorial, after all. Male cats would fight each other for control over the females. In fact, male cats in the wild have been known to starve females in their territory in an effort to get the females to mate with them. One documentary I once watched showed a starving female cat (I think it was a leopard) unwilling to mate with the aggressor males because she already had a litter - cubs who would be killed by those males in order to ensure their own progeny a fighting chance.
So yes, cats are wild. But a werecat isn't just feline - he's also human. He has a brain, doesn't he? Use it, Marc. USE YOUR F****G BRAIN! She's not your f****g property.
Despite the frequency with which I shouted this message at Marc Ramos throughout the series, he refused to get it. And this is the big failure in the Shifters series. This guy - Marc Ramos.
The books are never completely able to explain Faythe's love for Marc. I mean, sure, he's a stand up guy as long as he's secure in his relationship with Faythe. He doesn't suffer from Christian Grey Syndrome (aside from the emotional abuse) - he doesn't see her as weak or pathetic or responsible for the bad things that happen to her. He respects her abilities as a fighter and a leader. He respects her as alpha. Good. Good for him. But he’s an obnoxious ass, and nothing can change that.
It's weird and f-d up, because Marc is crazy chivalrous. He'd never hit a woman. However, he has no issues whatsoever with breaking every bone in the body of any tomcat that dares touch her. If something bad happens to her, he finds someone to blame, and punishes them in brutal fashion.
So here’s the deal with good boyfriends. If they’re sweet and loving and caring and affectionate AS LONG AS they’re getting what they want, but they’re COMPLETE assholes the minute they’re denied their ‘rightful possession’ – i.e. you – then they’re not the one, honey. THEY’RE SO NOT THE ONE.
So why does Faythe love him? Is it because her father and her brothers and her mother and MARC narrowed her horizons for her? Because they convinced her that the Pride was her whole life and Marc was her only plausible future?
Faythe herself isn't perfect. A lot of GR reviewers have pointed out her penchant for ill timed 'tantrums'. When people around you - and you yourself - are in danger, that is not the time to affirm your independence, they say. Survive first, then be independent. The same people also point out that despite her repeated demands for freedom, she's had no problem living on her dad's money for five years.
[There was also that one reviewer who was appalled that Faythe was rebelling against "Family and Responsibility" and called Faythe a 'cheating whore', but I'll discount her.]
Here's the thing about those reviewers: I don't think any of them have ever experienced actual loss of freedom. I doubt they know what it means to be emotionally brainwashed from birth, to be financially hobbled, and actually, physically restrained from leaving your house. I don't think they know how that feels.
It feels like dying. It feels like being smothered to death or buried alive. For those people calling Faythe 'daddy's spoilt little princess', please allow me to remind you that her Daddy locked her in A CAGE. For wanting to go to college. For not wanting to be a teen bride.
A CAGE.
She's not a brat, she's a survivor of abuse. She's not throwing a 'tantrum', she's desperately and instinctively reacting to remembered - and potential - trauma. To someone like that, independence is paramount. Yes, even above her life.
Stray is definitely a conflicting read. I get the feeling that the wildcats are super patriarchal because maybe Rachel Vincent wanted to stage her own version of a feminist revolution. I get that tabbies are rare and thus all those idiotic toms tend to treat them like an endangered resource – locking them up. I get that Faythe has to fight the system and prove herself the best - which she actually (eventually) does. But having her date someone like Marc ruins all of that, which I deeply regret.
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