Bad Kitty

Book: Bad Kitty
Author: Michelle Jaffe
Published: 2006

Seventeen-year-old Jasmine Callihan is in Vegas. Woohoo! But she’s there with her dad and her ludicrously young stepmom, not to mention her annoying cousin, Alyson, and Alyson’s twice-as-annoying best friend. Woop-de-doo. It doesn’t help that her dad (who has already lost points for not allowing her to take that way cool police internship) is constantly nagging her about why she can’t be more like Alyson.

Alyson is a Model Daughter. Alyson would never knock a wedding cake into the swimming pool while chasing a (possibly fictitious) cat. Alyson would never use eyeshadow to dust for fingerprints. Alyson’s friends would never crash their vacation to help Alyson solve a mystery involving the cat, the cat’s little owner, and the cat’s little owner’s superstar mom who is hiding from her murderous ex-husband. Alyson would never fall in love with a possible Evil Henchman (but he’s so cute!). Wouldn’t Jasmine like to be more like Alyson?

Actually, Dad, no. Jasmine is fine being herself. Frankly, Jasmine (with the help of those vacation-crashing friends, Polly, Tom, and Roxy) is having a blast being herself. And readers will have a blast with her adventures.

This delicious farce of a book reads like The Princess Diaries meets CSI meets the Weekly World News (which plays a role in the plot) meets the BeDazzler meets lots and lots of sugar meets The Magical Multiplying Footnotes. Logical? No. Realistic? No.

On the other hand . . . hilarious? Yep. Clever? Yep. Great characters? Yep, yep, triple yep. Oodles of fun? You betcha. There’s no other word for this book but “madcap caper.” Okay, well, that’s two words, but seriously, read it and tell me I’m wrong. Eh? Eh? Thought so.