I've been pulling unread books off my bookshelf and grabbed this one, most likely a gift from someone who knows I love cats. On the surface, it seems fine. Delve in, however, and it's beyond bad -- it's horrific. The first short story wasn't written very well but had a kind of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" vibe, so I hung in there. After that, there was the obligatory dead cat story and some random meandering snippets from a veterinarian with no discernible storyline. I hung in there through the use of the n-word to describe a black cat and through the butchering of Lewis Carroll (essentially mashing up all paragraphs including the words "Cheshire Cat" with no connecting passages). But I finally bailed in the middle of one story. It is rare that I stop reading a book. I have pushed through many tomes I didn't care for. In this case, I simply couldn't stomach it. SPOILER ALERT. In the short story, the husband rapes his wife, then kills her cat, a devoted creature who tried to stop the assault. He turns the dead cat's fur into a ruff on a coat he gifts to his wife. Beyond the obvious WTF reaction, I simply had enough. I got the book out of my sight as quickly as possible. Fortunately it is now out of print. Good riddance.
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