Stray by Rachel Vincent

Stray by Rachel Vincent

Series: The Shifters
Publisher: MIRA
Category: Adult
624 Pages

From Vincent's Site:
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.

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...


This was a fast paced and fun read. Vincent creates a very interesting world of people who transfer into cats - panthers, technically. I hope she continues to build on this world and add in more mythology to give her feline race more background.

Faythe was a fun, but predictable, character. She was hormonal, quick-tempered, and had a lot of rebellion in her. Think Rachel from the Animorphs series plus a nastier vocabulary. Marc was quite,um, angry. His jealousy about drove me nuts. I just felt bad for Jace.

I couldn't completely get into this book. It was a fun read, but something kept me from falling into the plot like I normally do. Even so, this book is worth a chance. I hope that whenever I read the three more books that Vincent has released I'll find a more mature Faythe and a plot that I can really get into. My last note is that this should only be picked up by kids in high school. There is violence, bad language, and sex throughout the book. It also deals with rape for a few chapters.

B-