A smart, sarcastic, illustrated look at the cat-keeping lifestyle.
A short collection of humorous vignettes from the life of a cat owner.
Maggots’ (Cupcake Factory, 2015, etc.) short book, lavishly illustrated by Jacobus, gives readers dozens of lively, humorous glimpses into the always problematic dynamic between cats and their owners. Overall, the author enhances the immediacy of this account by casting many reflections here in the form of diary entries of both cat and man, and these are filled with a raucous humor that will make this short book enjoyable for cat owners everywhere. The interactions in these pages may be fanciful—humans and cats simply talk back and forth to one another, and there’s a buddy-movie vibe to the whole thing—but they’ll nevertheless be immediately recognizable to cat people specifically and pet owners in general. When the narrator, Human, asks his pet, Old Cat, “What are you going to do today? Why don’t you make yourself useful and find a part-time job or something?” many will nod knowingly when the feline replies, “Nah, I’m just gonna lie around, maybe lick myself. I’ll probably destroy some of your expensive furniture. Anyway, catch you later.” The book touches upon nearly every aspect of cat ownership, from the damage they do during their seemingly manic bursts of energy to their scattershot understanding of sanitation to their complete disregard for human privacy. The cat-as–alarm-clock, the cat-as-noisemaker, the cat-as–garbage-disposal—and, charmingly (though always with a cynical edge), the cat-as–friend-and-companion—are all brought to life in short scenes illustrated in either full-color images or energetic pen-and-ink drawings by Jacobus. Readers get a cat’s-eye perspective on everything from the pets’ wanderlust to their hatred of baths to their curious, and often repulsive, habit of presenting their owners with killed and mutilated animal corpses as presents. Both sides liberally express their exasperation (“Do you know what it's like as a single father raising a brat of a cat?” the human asks at one point), but there’s an undercurrent of grudging affection in these pages that will likewise strike cat owners as familiar.
A smart, sarcastic, illustrated look at the cat-keeping lifestyle.Pub Date: March 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5233-0730-2
Page Count: 38
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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