Kitty Goes to War by Carrie Vaughn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If I could choose 3.5 stars in this system, I would. I was torn between the two ratings. First and foremost, my biggest complaint was how Tyler’s part in the story was wrapped up. I would have liked to see him taken into Kitty’s pack and become a regular character in the series rather than how it worked out in the end. Since that was really my biggest complaint, I went with the higher rating.

What I have really enjoyed throughout the series is watching Kitty grow into her own skin as a werewolf, a wife, an Alpha, and everything else that makes her what she is. She is quick to correct people that she is not an expert, that she is new to the Alpha thing, etc. Kitty is not at all “This is how I think it should be so this is how it will be” but is constantly questioning and HOPING that things work out. When she is called in to evaluate a few rogue werewolves suffering from PTSD, fresh from Afghanistan, Kitty is quick to hope that they can be saved. Not because werewolves have to stick together. Not because they are soldiers who were serving their country. But because she had to cling to the hope that werewolves were still human; that SHE was still human.

Often, I find great interest in a story not because of the action but because of the psychology and mindsets of the characters presented. It was interesting to ‘watch’ the three soldiers struggle between their wolves and their humanity while warring with their military disciplines and loyalties. Watching Tyler’s mental and emotional evolution was equally as fascinating to me.

All in all, the book was sort of odd to me within the series because of the new subjects brought forth. But clearly, such things will be utilized in future books so it is easy to see what doors have been unlocked within this world for future exploration.

I think I liked this book more when it was first out and titled “Practical Magic”. Granted, the premise isn’t exactly one of a kind. But there could have been so much more done and done differently that I honestly felt let down in the end.

What sets this book apart is that the driving force behind everything is magic. The Waverly’s garden has things that, when used in meals and such with the correct purpose, things happen. The apple tree seems to be almost sentient and produces magical fruit that will show the eater of said fruit the most important moment in their life, whether it is good or bad.

But, really, the story is about the Waverly sisters. They are somewhat outcasted in their town because they are Waverlys and they do magic, even if no one will say the word. Their fathers are unknown and their mother was nomadic before settling down with their grandmother just long enough to have the second girl. Then the mother disappeared and died tragically. The girls were left to be raised by their grandmother. The younger sister did not embrace her heritage and ran away after graduating high school, finding trouble later in life and having to return to her home town for sanctuary, bringing her daughter with her. The elder sister flourished and embraced her way of life, refusing to venture out of her safety zone.

The sisters are reunited and all seems to be going well until the younger sister’s ex shows back up. Dun dun DUUUUUNNNN.

Stay Classy, Internets.
♡ Kristen

The Rules:
1. Go to your search engine of choice and type, “You know you’re from (your state, province, region, whatever) when…”
2. Copy and paste the list.
3. Bold the items that apply to you.

1. You can correctly pronounce Tierrasanta, La Jolla, Rancho Penesquitos, San Ysidro Otay Mesa, Jamul, and El Cajon, and know where they are.

2. There are four distinct seasons: Summer, Not Quite Summer, Almost Summer, and oh, Hey look its summer again.

3. Your high school had a surf team.

4. Chula-juana is a real town, as well as San Yskidrow, Spun Alley, and Nasty City.

5. Your house is worth more than some small countries.

6. You know what MB, OB, and PB stand for.

7. Every street name is either in Spanish or Spanish related, and you’re surprised when other areas don’t have this.

8. You can determine the accuracy of someone’s “I’m ghetto” claim by knowing their high school. for example: El Camino High School, or Crawford High.

9. You see weather forecasts for four different climate zones in the same county, and aren’t remotely surprised.

10. You’ve gone to Mt. Helix in July and know you still need a jacket.

11. You remember going to “The Cross” on Mt. Helix for Easter services. 60 degrees is COLD!

12. You’ve tailgated at Qualcomm Stadium, and for bonus points, also tailgated when it was Jack Murphy Stadium.

13. You know that “charge!” doesn’t refer to a credit card.

14. You remember going downtown via Federal Blvd. before Hwy 94 was built.

15. You remember when Hwy 94 was 2 lanes in each direction.

16. You’ve been on a field trip to see an Imax movie at the Rueben H. Fleet Space Center.

17. You still call it the Del Mar Fair.

18. You say “I’m going to the track” and people know what your talking about.

19. You say “I’m going to the park” and people know what you mean.

20. You remember when ‘Lemon Grove’, ‘La Mesa’, and ‘Spring Valley’ were “in the sticks”

21. You understand what may-gray and june-gloom means.

22. A famous skateboarder/surfer lives in your town.

23. Theres a North County, South County, and an East County but no Central County.

24. You know what it means when a girl in a short skirt is walking on El Cajon Blvd.

25. You’ve gotten stuck in the Horton Plaza parking structure traffic after a Padres game.

26. You know what “the merge” is, and will plan your entire day around not being on it during rush hour.

27. You know the difference between Clairmont Mesa, Kearny Mesa, and Mira Mesa.

28. You’ve stayed home from school or work, because “It’s Raining!”.

29. You’ve gone to Sea World on a warm day and sat in the first few rows at the Shamu show to get cooled off.

30. You’ve been delayed at the Border Checkpoints on the 5, the 8 and the 15.

31. Your house doesn’t have or need air conditioning unless you live in the East County.

32. No matter what the weather is, there is always someone walking around in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops.

33. You’ve been to the desert, the mountains, and the beach all in one day.

34. You know that Santee, and Lakeside is where the ‘cowboys’ live.

35. You know why Hillcrest is known as ‘the swish alps’.

36. You hate tourists and their bad driving. (But you don’t know how to drive in the rain.) [ psst! I learned! LOL ]

37. You’ve gone to the Zoo just to hang out.

38. You have family or friends that have moved to Arizona, Nevada, Utah or Colorado.

39. You know someone who doesn’t own pants.

40. You know what the ‘Santa Anas’ are, and that they have nothing to do with the city of Santa Ana.

41. You know what ‘real mexican food’ tastes like.

42. You remember when ‘Mission Valley’ was cow pastures (Oh… to have bought land then!) [ side note, my great-grandfather almost owned all of Mission Valley ]

43. You remember when Lemon Grove had “the cows”

Stay Classy, Internets.
♡ Kristen

This week saw some rather big changes for me in my personal life as well as in the world.

Monday saw me getting frustrated with Robby’s mom being here and deciding that she knew better when it came to the dogs who aren’t her dogs. It is like someone telling another parent how to raise their kids. At one point, Trouble came upstairs–where he is not allowed–and it’s just like… Um, hello. He isn’t banned from being upstairs because we are being mean. There are things up here that he could get into that he is allergic to and he doesn’t do so well with the cats. Soooo. Yeah. Highlight of the day was when we lost power upstairs… while I was in the bathroom going tinkle. ZOMG.

Tuesday morning began with Trouble making these bark-howl-bark-howl-bark-howl noises because Robby’s mom took Benji and Diesel out for a walk and he didn’t get to go with them at that moment. FML. So I had to drag my ass out of bed and go toss his butt outside for a bit before putting him back in his kennel and going back to bed for an hour. Oh. And then when it came time to log in for work, my PC has decided that it no longer wants to recognize the USB ports when I’m running Workbooth. So I had to get my laptop set up instead. Almost two hours into my shift, my laptop just shuts off. Mid-call. Apparently I had forgotten to plug in the laptop when I was frantically getting everything set up. OOPS. Robby’s mom left but instead of going back to San Diego, she went to Utah to be with her mother who’d had a stroke. Not a very good week for that family. *sigh* Unfortunately, my mental state was already frayed for the whole day and I was fighting off yet another anxiety attack. I only very narrowly avoided a full on attack but my head was not a very happy place for the day. This kept up through Wednesday even with the awesome news that I wound up receiving.

Wednesday brought about the wonderful news that I got the job! YAY! Only I was leaving for San Diego the next day so there was going to be a lot of scrambling to get whatever I could done. Even knowing that things were going to better, my pending anxiety attack just blew my mind anyway. Side note, the tacky pick-up line of the day was “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought that was a Braille name tag.” – this did not happen to me; some people on Twitter and I were trading hilarious pick-up lines. I won.

Thursday. I spent half of the day traveling. But my work day can pretty much be summed up by this:

Friday was supposed to be the first of my pre-employment stuff since Chase had a center in San Diego that I could utilize for my fingerprinting and drug testing. None of this happened because there were specific appointment times and there weren’t any available. Monday it is! My mother and I wound up going shoe shopping at Kohls for her and she gave me the Kohls Cash she got from the transaction. Sweet! $20 at Kohls next week!

Saturday saw a surprise birthday party for my mother, who will be turning 50 on the 7th of May. Pre-party, I drove to Mission Valley and had breakfast at Mimi’s with my dad, Lieke, Anneke, Marieka, and her boyfriend. It was Marieka’s birthday. From there I went back up to Escondido and helped with the final preparations for the party before the guests arrived. The party went off without a hitch which was awesome. My mother apparently figured that something was up but I had taken care to make sure that all of the guests’ cars were hidden on the property, in the rear field, and that everyone was silent and in the rear of the house. So when my mother walked in the door, she had been expecting something but no one was there. She walked into the family room and BAM! We had her open her gifts early on because the big event for the coming week was that she was going to be in Kentucky and would be at the Kentucky Derby ON HER BIRTHDAY. So exciting for her. She’s followed horse racing for so long and she always watches the Derby from her living room. This year she will be there. For gifts she got a dress and shoes from her husband and a proper hat from my grandmother. She teared up when she learned what she was going to be doing. My mother and I may not always get along but I am excited for her. She and I had a couple glasses of wine together after the party when it was just a few of us left. We decided to go to a casino and had to settle on Barona because it allowed the 18 year olds (my youngest brother and youngest step-brother). Teehee I actually came out ahead and not because I won anything. I spent my mother’s money instead. She wound up giving me one of her winning tickets that I’d made her cash out. I split it with Kelly because that boy is terrible and lost $60. At least he walked out -$20 at the end of the night instead of -$60.

Sunday was mostly a day of rest. Everyone except for my mother and I wound up going to the movies to see Fast Five. She and I went back to Kohls so she could return the shoes she didn’t want (she had bought three pairs to decide upon a winner later). This time, I managed to talk her into buying me some work shirts while she shopped for summery clothes for herself. I walked away with 5 shirts and gave her the Kohls Cash back since that was only fair.

Then we got home and it was all over the news: the US Military had killed Osama Bin Laden and had confirmed the identity. We were shocked and had to sit there to replay what we had missed. I don’t remember what happened but we did not actually watch the President’s speech live. I can’t actually remember what we were doing that we missed it but I looked it up later in the night to watch.

Stay Classy, Internets.
♡ Kristen