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A review by kblincoln
Kiss Me, Catalina by Priscilla Oliveras
4.0
Well I liked it enough to immediately go buy the first in the series (once I realized this must be part of a series LOL).
Catalina Capuleta and her merry band of sisters (literally band, they are Mariachi Los Nubes) have just won a band competition that means Cat is now slated to be the opening act and song writing collaborater of internationally famous heart-throb Mariachi star Patricio Galan.
I mean, with a description like that, how can you resist this? Mariachi! Handsome stars! Song writing!
I didn't get the Capuleta reference, even when it becomes clear Mariachi Los Nubes beat out rival Mariachi band of the Monteros for a while. Apparently my Romeo&Juliet retelling radar wasn't finely tuned. But also, I realized, that the retelling was actually the first book with older sister Mariana, who because Cat is on the road, barely is featured in this book.
And while the title seems to reference Taming of the Shrew, Cat is no shrew, and she's not having to deal with threatened weddings for younger sisters or being wooed solely because of her spitfire attitude.
Cat is fired up to write songs with Patricio, all the while with her dander up in case he should be like many other in the mariachi community-- insisting tradition demands male musicians.
Of course, sparks fly between them, and both have parental/daddy issues that will interfere with their careers and their relationship-- the biggest one being Cat vowed to never date a Mariachi because her father was one.
What I really enjoyed about this was the Mariachi instrumental/song background, the amazing huge Capuleta family of sisters, and the use of Spanish (don't worry, almost all is translated in the dialogue in a non-repetitive way) throughout.
Sometimes the physical descriptions of what Cat and Patricio were doing were heavy handed (do we really need to know one hand cups an elbow an the other his own chin? or could that be summarized better?) and it almost veered into sweet romance territory as there's alot of imagining of caresses but not so much actual steam (and a definite skip to next morning when things do start to heat up).
Catalina Capuleta and her merry band of sisters (literally band, they are Mariachi Los Nubes) have just won a band competition that means Cat is now slated to be the opening act and song writing collaborater of internationally famous heart-throb Mariachi star Patricio Galan.
I mean, with a description like that, how can you resist this? Mariachi! Handsome stars! Song writing!
I didn't get the Capuleta reference, even when it becomes clear Mariachi Los Nubes beat out rival Mariachi band of the Monteros for a while. Apparently my Romeo&Juliet retelling radar wasn't finely tuned. But also, I realized, that the retelling was actually the first book with older sister Mariana, who because Cat is on the road, barely is featured in this book.
And while the title seems to reference Taming of the Shrew, Cat is no shrew, and she's not having to deal with threatened weddings for younger sisters or being wooed solely because of her spitfire attitude.
Cat is fired up to write songs with Patricio, all the while with her dander up in case he should be like many other in the mariachi community-- insisting tradition demands male musicians.
Of course, sparks fly between them, and both have parental/daddy issues that will interfere with their careers and their relationship-- the biggest one being Cat vowed to never date a Mariachi because her father was one.
What I really enjoyed about this was the Mariachi instrumental/song background, the amazing huge Capuleta family of sisters, and the use of Spanish (don't worry, almost all is translated in the dialogue in a non-repetitive way) throughout.
Sometimes the physical descriptions of what Cat and Patricio were doing were heavy handed (do we really need to know one hand cups an elbow an the other his own chin? or could that be summarized better?) and it almost veered into sweet romance territory as there's alot of imagining of caresses but not so much actual steam (and a definite skip to next morning when things do start to heat up).