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A review by nailahreema
The Year of the Cat: A Love Story by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
2.0
I started off reading the physical copy of this book but was struggling with it. BBC Sounds have an abridged version of it so I switched to that. I am wondering if the abridged version drastically changes the story.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett writes in a diary like way, which I appreciated but the content didn't grab me. She had a lot of worries and anxieties which intensified during the lock down period. She decided to channel her desire to be a mother into caring for a kitten. I don't think it's the same thing but whatever floats your boat.
I did like some of the topics she touched upon such as pregnancy scares as a teen versus the desire to be pregnant as an adult, how women are expected to be grateful carers and not speak about about the burden of caring. Shitty male therapists. She spoke about the time a man strangled her on the street and how everyone else walked by. It was terrifying, and the lack of care the police showed. She spoke about Sarah Everard's murder without naming her. I think A Year of the Cat is so firmly placed in the Covid years, once you read it outside of that, the impact is lost even though the themes are applicable to all time periods.
When you don't enjoy reading/listening, you start to pick up on all the minor things that irritate you such as the editing of the abridged audio version. Usually in audiobooks, you don't hear the narrator breathe before they begin a sentence, even though everyone takes a breath before they speak. It bugged me a lot. I also didn't appreciate the austen-esque piano music to highlight the breaks in narrative. I also couldn't get over, how bored the author sounded, reading aloud her own book.
A friend read A Year of the Cat at the same time, and they loved it. They really appreciated how the narrative would jump across time periods because that's a natural form of speaking. Nobody discusses events in strict chronological order, they intersperse it with anecdotes, analyses, thoughts etc
Something they picked up on (which I didn't even think about) is the allocation of burden. Although Rhiannon and her husband agreed to get the cat, Rhiannon did most of the work. We had both read Invisble Women recently so this remains a hot topic. I felt that Rhiannon nagged her husband into getting a cat, and as the cat was mostly for her benefit, it made sense that she cared for it the most.
Honestly, I wouldn't recommend A Year of the Cat, but I can see from other reviews, people reacted to it very strongly. Mostly, I found it forgettable.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett writes in a diary like way, which I appreciated but the content didn't grab me. She had a lot of worries and anxieties which intensified during the lock down period. She decided to channel her desire to be a mother into caring for a kitten. I don't think it's the same thing but whatever floats your boat.
I did like some of the topics she touched upon such as pregnancy scares as a teen versus the desire to be pregnant as an adult, how women are expected to be grateful carers and not speak about about the burden of caring. Shitty male therapists. She spoke about the time a man strangled her on the street and how everyone else walked by. It was terrifying, and the lack of care the police showed. She spoke about Sarah Everard's murder without naming her. I think A Year of the Cat is so firmly placed in the Covid years, once you read it outside of that, the impact is lost even though the themes are applicable to all time periods.
When you don't enjoy reading/listening, you start to pick up on all the minor things that irritate you such as the editing of the abridged audio version. Usually in audiobooks, you don't hear the narrator breathe before they begin a sentence, even though everyone takes a breath before they speak. It bugged me a lot. I also didn't appreciate the austen-esque piano music to highlight the breaks in narrative. I also couldn't get over, how bored the author sounded, reading aloud her own book.
A friend read A Year of the Cat at the same time, and they loved it. They really appreciated how the narrative would jump across time periods because that's a natural form of speaking. Nobody discusses events in strict chronological order, they intersperse it with anecdotes, analyses, thoughts etc
Something they picked up on (which I didn't even think about) is the allocation of burden. Although Rhiannon and her husband agreed to get the cat, Rhiannon did most of the work. We had both read Invisble Women recently so this remains a hot topic. I felt that Rhiannon nagged her husband into getting a cat, and as the cat was mostly for her benefit, it made sense that she cared for it the most.
Honestly, I wouldn't recommend A Year of the Cat, but I can see from other reviews, people reacted to it very strongly. Mostly, I found it forgettable.