MY FRIEND, KITTEN.

A collaborative work tells the story of a young woman’s traumatic childhood, her healing, and her turn toward healing others.

Isabella “Kitten” Hansen describes herself as the “lead author” of this book, which is credited to Bella, Holly, and Amy and purports to share the true story of Kitten’s youth, her friendships with her co-authors, and her practice of healing others through counseling. Kitten, who’s apparently in her 20s, writes that she was a victim of sexual assault and endured parental neglect as a child; throughout the book, she tells of reckoning with the trauma of these experiences with an aim to form connections with other people and protect them. She tells of connecting in 2011 with Holly and helping Amy work through an eating disorder. However, she also found that she couldn’t escape from her own trauma; early in the book, another narrator, Jasper, recounts finding Kitten in the woods after an attempted suicide in her mid-teens, which was later followed by other attempts. The authors effectively show how someone who’s privately suffering can project an outwardly upbeat and adventurous image: Kitten, for example, is effectively depicted as boisterous and fun, and frequently getting involved in hijinks (such as climbing, and getting stuck on, a roller coaster). Over the course of the book, the three credited authors collectively sketch a complex portrait of Kitten. However, the book feels a little too much like the theme park ride that Kitten climbs, as it jostles readers between extremes too quickly. The writing seems intentionally juvenile at times, as when Amy calls herself “little miss bunny wabbit,” and Kitten asks at one point, “Anywayz, so am I crazy?” This tone feels particularly jarring and off-putting during horrific and graphic scenes of child sexual abuse. It’s unclear what purpose these scenes are intended to serve, but they may trigger readers who are survivors of assault.

An incoherent and disorienting reading experience.