Review: Meow Mix
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 18, 2012
This is a weird book and I don't know what to make of it. But I'm pretty sure I liked it.***Gigantic Spoilers Ahead*** Stop reading if you don't want to know.One thing up front - there is an abortion described in this book. If you don't like that, you will probably hate the book.First of all, the male lead wasn't just awful. He wasn't just horrible. He was despicable! He was evil! He inflicted psychological damage upon his little sister who was in a wheelchair no less. I wanted to tear his throat out through the screen. Or at least get him spayed. And yet...you know that there is a human heart beating somewhere behind the giant panther. Some has to really dig it out, though. Really, really dig. Hard.Fallon is awesome. She is hell on wheel. She doesn't back down from anything...and I do mean anything. I'll read the next book if just for her POV alone. I also know that there is a 99.9% chance she was African-American (though she doesn't come out and say it - but she describes her parents' and her skin tones), and it suddenly struck me as very odd. I've never come across a A-A lead in any of the paranormals I've read. And just one Asian person. So good for you Ms. Naoele. All the heroines don't have to look like Sookie Stackhouse or (God forbid) Bella (because she's sparklingly beautiful). I also think there is definitely something paranormal about her - little things she says and does allude to it - maybe a big cat, or even cooler, a wolf-shifter (take THAT Brenda!). And she is adopted and we know next to nothing about her biological parents (though her adoptive ones definitely do). Also, her friend Josh clearly knows what lives on this island.What I don't get - and another reviewer mentioned it:They eat humans. They eat humans in order to shift. Fallon's parents don't  shift, because they don't eat people, and that's good, because they're raising their daughter in the human world. But it's a small island and the mainland area around it isn't so big either. Cat people have been living on the island for centuries. Hasn't anyone in Maine noticed that there is a higher death/disappearance rate than even what happens to Jessica Fletcher in Cabot Cove or Stephen King's Castle Rock or Salem's Lot? Even in The Lost Boys they put up missing children posters. Nothing here. I'm pretty sure at least 2 dozen people were eaten or described as breakfast, lunch or dinner throughout the book - and it only occurs over the course of ONE SUMMER! The FBI should have been involved here when J. Edgar Hoover was still breathing. Human sausages???!!! Ewwwww!I will admit, I am not a cat person. In fact, I am violently allergic to cats and get asthma attacks when around them. I think they are evil. I am a dog person, I love wolves and werewolves, and live with a bunny and several birds. This in no way influenced my review. No way.I will definitely read the next installment. This series could be...different.4 1/2 stars. Good job.