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Book review: Kitty's House of Horrors
Jan. 23rd, 2010 09:15 pmToday's book review is Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn.
This is book 7 in the ongoing series; a self contained episode but relying on ongoing characters that aren't fully explained.
I really have a problem with the basic premise of this book. Given the title, I don't think it's a huge violation of my own strict no-spoilers policy to mention that this book is a retelling of a classic bad horror movie. Some people might find it odd that a fan of werewolves and vampires doesn't like bad horror movies, but I really don't. Gratuitous death is just not my thing, and some of the deaths in the story are particularly dehumanizing. I started out wanting to really rip this book apart, but as I thought about it, I realized that, even as contrived as it came across, it's actually a surprisingly good job of justifying an utterly silly plot -- enough so that the plot holes that actually stuck in my craw were surprisingly minor ones. Mainly, this book was just a really mean thing to do to some characters that I've actually come to like a lot. And despite that, we manage to advance some bits of the larger story arc and have some actual character development.
6 out of 10.
( plot summary )
This is book 7 in the ongoing series; a self contained episode but relying on ongoing characters that aren't fully explained.
I really have a problem with the basic premise of this book. Given the title, I don't think it's a huge violation of my own strict no-spoilers policy to mention that this book is a retelling of a classic bad horror movie. Some people might find it odd that a fan of werewolves and vampires doesn't like bad horror movies, but I really don't. Gratuitous death is just not my thing, and some of the deaths in the story are particularly dehumanizing. I started out wanting to really rip this book apart, but as I thought about it, I realized that, even as contrived as it came across, it's actually a surprisingly good job of justifying an utterly silly plot -- enough so that the plot holes that actually stuck in my craw were surprisingly minor ones. Mainly, this book was just a really mean thing to do to some characters that I've actually come to like a lot. And despite that, we manage to advance some bits of the larger story arc and have some actual character development.
6 out of 10.
( plot summary )