Vampire Book Club discussion

Note: this thread will contain spoilers for Stray but not the other books in the Shifter series. If you haven't finished the book yet but still want to join in the discussion you can find our running spoiler free thread here.

So far we’ve had discussions about Faythe and the Boys , this week I thought we could talk more about the Pride and world building in general.

• Rachel Vincent has created a world were only werecats exist. Did you like the fact that the werecat species stemmed more from an evolutionary chain than a full blown paranormal world (i.e. vamps, weres, witches etc.)?

• One of the things I enjoyed about this book was how much time was spent in werecat form. Being from Faythe‘s point of view, we get to experience not only her shift but also her experiences and thoughts as a cat. Did you enjoy reading about the process and how relationships changed whilst in cat form?

• Whilst the rules about the species and their traits are pretty set in stone from the beginning, we see Faythe do something that no one has seen before; a partial shift. Any theories on why Faythe is the first to ever to achieve this?

• The Pride is almost a character in itself, with everyone doing what is “best for the Pride”. It dictates where you live, what career you have and even who becomes your family. Did you like the dynamics and the way the pride structure was set up? Clearly Ryan’s actions were inexcusable but do you think the pressures of the Pride played a part in the way he turned out?

• We learn a lot about Pride cats, and also about the dangerous Jungle Cats, but what about the Strays and Wildcats. Ryan is the only one we’ve encountered so far, but would you have liked to have seen more about werecats outside Pride life?

As always, feel free to add any questions or thoughts you have to the discussion!

Next week (Sunday October 28th) will be the last topic for this month’s group read, so it will be a general open discussion about Stray, spoilers allowed. Hope you can join us!

Chelsea is taking suggestions over a VBC for next months group read, so jump on over to the comments and tell us what book you’d like in the running! Thanks so much for the great discussions so far guys! :)

I did enjoy the way the dynamics of the pride worked. I imagine life like this "back in the day" when lands were being discovered and people were immigrating here in groups and they set up settlements in areas and had to rely on each other for support. In essences they built their own "pack/pride" out of necessity and fellowship. Family stays close and helps each other out, I like that.

I liked seeing things from when Faythe was a cat. I thought that was pretty interesting. I liked the Pride, but sometimes, I thought it was a little crazy how everything had to be done for the pride, and it was almost as if they couldn't do anything without thinking of the pride. I understand why it was like this, but...man, the pressure.
I think it would have been interesting to learn about cats outside the Pride, but I'm guessing that that happens later on in the series

I did really love Faythe's werecat form, and I like how some things are simply easier to express as a cat than a person. Like, as humans she and Marc can't express what they want to say but as a cat he pretty definatively says 'you're mine' when he scents her and she just as obviously makes her point by almost crippling him.
Maybe because Faythe is always trying to 'break the mold' of who and what she is and the one who is the most trying to find a balence of being human and were is why she was able to partially shift first? I don't know but I did think it was cool.

The Pride seems so stifling; it's good like a family unit and they are obviously very apart from the humans they share space with so the Pride is a neccessary creation but the pressure seems really intense. Ryan's actions are inexusable but you can understand why he crumbles a little on his own; Pride cats aren't really made for it.
I liked the Jungle/Stray theme; its a bit of elitism that a lot of UF share (see Kelley Armstrong's Bitten for example) that even works as a cultural parallel to North Americans thinking we're better, more civilized, etc. Strays aren't strays because they want to be, but they're less all the same; and Jungle Cats are the big unknown; Faythe is scared of them because she's been taught to be, and unfortunately her first meeting with one was less than pleasant.