Four Stars

Best for:
Folks who like stories about women who society can’t quite place. A little bit like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, but different.

In a nutshell:
Mia is married to Tristan, stepmother to Oliver, and deals with Tristan’s ex wife Belinda on a daily basis. She is an executive at a very small business, and has started attending a pet grief support group. Only issue: her beloved cat Pigeon is very much still alive.

Worth quoting:
“There must be so much freedom when you know you’ll always land on your feet.”

“Rather than society acknowledging women who are struggling and helping them, they put firm hands on our shoulders and push us into the darkness.”

“Nothing is a waste of time if it gets you to where you’re supposed to be.”

Why I chose it:
I needed a book to read while getting my latest tattoos, one of which is a picture of one of my cats. Seemed like a good fit.

Review:
While my review doesn’t go into detail, I should say that the book itself should have a content note for pet loss and grief, emotional abuse, and unexpectedly graphic sex scenes (there aren’t many, and they sort of fit, but they still pulled me a bit out of the book).

There is a lot to not like about Mia. She’s very judgmental for someone who is so deeply annoyed at other people judging her. She’s the type of manager who would drive many people to leave a job; she has strong negative opinions about people with tattoos. There’s also a lot to like about Mia. She’s also someone who cares very deeply for her step-son, someone who takes good care of her husband, and who loves her 16-year-old cat Pigeon very, very much.

Mia has had a challenging life, and has made some choices that got her to where she is now. Over the course of the book, she undergoes a transformation, allowing her to become the authentic version of herself. Along the way, she examines what it means to be a wife (and if she even wants to be one), to be the head of a small business, to have so much of one’s love and affection tied up in one’s cat. What do we need from others? What should we be willing to give to others? And is it reasonable to assume the answers to those questions will be the same for everybody?

As someone who has two 13-year-old cats, and would do pretty much anything for them, I appreciate Mia’s respect for the relationship between pet carer and animal. I appreciate how the author discusses pet loss in the grief group, and how for some people, their animals can really be the things that help them get out of bed and keep going every day. At the same time, she does a great job of showing how important relationships with other people are as well. She looks at how we don’t know what other people are going through unless we make the space for them to be comfortable to share it with us, and that everyone is going through something.

What’s next for this book:
I’m not quite sure. The book, like its protagonist, is a bit odd. So I might hold onto it and read it again. Or I might donate it.