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Kit Sweetly has been working as a wench — aka waitress — at a medieval-themed restaurant known as the Castle, but she dreams of being a knight like her brother. She’s trained alongside him, knows the moves, can ride a horse, and really needs the raise that comes with knighthood to help her mom pay the bills and, she hopes, secure a spot at the college of her dreams. The problem? Company policy allows only guys to be knights, and her uncle — aka “King Len”, the manager at the Castle — refuses to even consider changing the policy.
When Kit masquerades one night as the Red Knight in her brother’s place and reveals her identity at the end of the show, she’s rocketed into internet fame and lands in a heap of trouble with management. But this situation is unjust, and Kit is determined to fight the system. As other wenches join her quest and a protest forms, Kit scrapes together a desperate plan for them to prove their worth. In a tournament before Castle executives, they’ll fight as female knights, proving the idiocies of gender restrictions, and aim to earn their own happily-ever-after instead of getting banned from the arena or, worse, fired.
The Life and Medieval Times of Kit Sweetly mixes the thrill of medieval times with the gritty realism of the modern day. This book is proudly feminist, and while I can respect Kit and her friends for battling for their rights, I was hoping for more knightly action from the girls, rather than the whole book being a political fight for the right to … fight. I’m not a huge fan of contemporary style to begin with, so it could just be me and my derailed expectations, but I struggled to finish the book. The plot felt slow. I was bored at times and very close to not finishing it on several occasions, and perhaps it’s my fantasy-loving self missing out on the knightly action I was craving, but the ending also felt a little … anticlimactic. Overall, this story just wasn’t for me.
Rated: High, for over 30 uses of strong language, over 10 uses of moderate language, and a few instances of mild language. Kit flips off her boss. She talks of the situations where she and her friend lost their virginity, though the romance subplot only goes as far as kissing. The story also features underage social drinking and smoking.
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