THE PLOT: ‘Cat Lady’ by Dawn O’Porter is a contemporary comedic novel. Mia plays many roles; she’s a good wife, a doting stepmother and a strong career woman. But her favourite role is loving owner of her pet cat. Unfortunately, it seems that everyone in her life hates cats so she has to go out of her way to protect her beloved pet. When a shocking event shatters the conventional life she’s carefully built, Mia is faced with a choice. Does she live for a society that’s all too quick to judge, or does she live for herself? And what’s wrong with being a cat lady anyway?

RATING: This is a book about a woman who doesn’t fit in and her journey to finding her place in society. With themes of found family, past trauma and potential nods at neurodiversity, this has been a bit of a publishing trend over the last few years. In general, I feel these commercial books can be hit or miss as they never explicitly address the neurodiversity but simply show their main characters as “crazy” or “odd” by displaying behaviours such as strict routines, social awkwardness and inability to understand subtext or other characters’ emotions. This book is no exception and ticks a lot, if not all, of the tropes for the contemporary-oddball-woman genre. And, while I enjoyed the book, it made me feel uncomfortable at points. There just wasn’t enough specificity or realism to make me connect with and believe the character. Plus, the plot felt too thin and the premise was weak (I mean, do people really hate cats that much?). So I have to give this three and a half stars. Definitely my least favourite Dawn O’Porter, but I have to give her props for the humour as this book had me laughing out loud at points.

GOOD BITS: This is a funny book. Like, really funny. I keep smiling thinking of the post-it-notes on the computer (IYKYK) and I think that’s the authors strength. She taps into a sarcastic humour that gets me belly laughing. Characters such as Belinda, the insufferable ex-wife, and Ajay, the useless over-familiar colleague, are so well observed. But our main character, Mia, was too much of a caricature for me to fall in love with her. Yes, I laughed when I imagined her wearing kaftans lost in the park. But I never really felt for her or believed her to be a real person.

NOT SO GOOD BITS:  The plot hinges around the destruction of Mia’s marriage and losing her job. While they intersect somewhat, I don’t feel like much actually happened. There is some interesting backstory about her parents and character development as she gets over her past trauma but I kept expecting more. And, putting aside the neurodiversity parody, there were two other things that made me feel uncomfortable. Firstly, the storyline about supporting the Black employee feels awkward and mentions of unconscious bias training are crowbarred in. Secondly, the mentions of fostering are very negative and there was almost a sense of needing to stick with a “real” aka birth family.

OVERALL: I’d recommend this book to fans of ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ by Gail Honeyman and ‘The Maid’ by Nita Prose. If you want a quick, easy book to read on holiday, grab your copy. But I don’t feel like it was particularly life changing.

This book is available to purchase with a discount on my bookshop.org profile.