That’s right.  Someone was suffering from Acute Crazy in the room, but it wasn’t me.

In Kitty Kitty by Michele Jaffe (the sequel to Bad Kitty), Jasmine is back.  This time, she’s in Venice, Italy because her father is researching soap (hence the accusation of Acute Crazy), her new friend Arabella involves her in a mystery, and wacky hijinks ensue.

What I Liked

– Honestly, my favorite thing about the book is that everyone is so smart and contributes to the team.  Jasmine is interested in forensic science so she knows how to collect evidence with whatever’s in the room.  Polly is a fashion designing prodigy, and Roxy is a gadget mastermind who can make, well, anything.  Even Jasmine’s Evil Hench cousin Alyson has a stealth specialty that’s revealed in the book.  And then Veronique (Alyson’s friend) and Tom (Roxy’s twin brother) are there for moral support, I guess.  I’m not entirely sure what they do besides being nice and extremely good-looking, respectively.  The point is:  smart people are awesome.

– The book is a lot of fun.  Even when it gets heavy (there’s a murder), there’s a lot of comedy.  It’s like if Psych were about a bunch of teenaged MacGyvers, all with different specialties.

– There’s interesting groundwork laid for the next book, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

– The plot just zips along.  I read most of it in one sitting.

– I like that there’s no real malice in the relationship between Alyson and Jasmine.  Even though they clearly annoy each other and tease one another, it’s not really as nasty as it could be.  I believe that Alyson would help Jasmine the way she does and that Jasmine would include Alyson the way she does.  So that’s nice.

What I Didn’t Like

– The footnotes irritate me so much.  I don’t think they really add to the story at all, and I feel like most of what’s in them (random conversations) could just be a part of the text.

– There are points where the humor feels a little forced and like Jaffe is trying too hard.  There’s a running joke about adding “o” to the end of words to make them sound Italian, and aftero le whileo, it just got le lame-o.

In conclusion:  The footnotes are easy enough to ignore if you want to, and the book is breezy and a quick read.  It’s perfect for beach/pool reading or if you just want a light read after, say, reading a bunch of books about World War II.  Also, there are awesome female characters to be found, most of them of color.

YA Reading Challenge:  14/75; POC Reading Challenge:  10/15