I was recommended this book by a few different folks as a broad stroke guide to understanding cats as I considered adopting a pair, and I can say it absolutely delivered on that. I'm really really glad I was able to read this because it gave me so much more confidence and understanding and I feel helped me set a really strong foundation once I did bring two little kitties into my home, and tbh it has been a dream (very possibly due to implementing the guidelines in this book from day 1!!) ❤️ Finer points: - I think where this book really excels is assuming you have absolutely zero knowledge about cats, and teaching things as basic as interpreting body language - I loved that one point hammered in over and over was that your cats are not objects you own and can control but are beings that you form and maintain a relationship with and aim to live harmoniously with. I have already found that lens to be something I return to on a daily basis - I can see myself returning to reference this book as things come up and I want a refresher. There are "recipes" for understanding and resolving a plethora of situations that may arise during the course of cat ownership, and I also found these informative and good to know in advance - This book does not touch much on kittens in particular (e.g., nothing on weaning, teething, teaching to use the litterbox for the first time, etc). That's okay, it never promised to, but just wanted to note that for others. - There is definitely an assumption that readers are already familiar with or interested in Jackson Galaxy as a brand. This is the first I've heard of Jackson Galaxy so I didn't really care for the mentions of his personal story - One thing I found challenging was Jackson Galaxy creates a term for pretty much EVERYTHING and from that point on that's the vocabulary used. Almost every sentence uses one of these dozens of terms (there's a 13 page long index...) and it can be difficult to remember what each one means or where it was actually defined and explained. Granted, it's not that many of these terms aren't very useful once you understand and remember them (e.g., HCKE, energetic balloon) but it's definitely not the kind of book you can pick up and start in a random chapter you're interested in and be able to understand it, purely from that Jackson Galaxy-specific lingo perspective.

This is one of those mystery books that gets you really excited to grab a notebook and make your own character list and family trees and red string murder board to try to piece it all together (or at least, that's how I felt). I thought the premise was pretty interesting and the execution worked well enough to where there was a solid mix of some instances where I had the satisfaction of being right, and some where the twist totally got me. Unfortunately, I do have a few hang ups that I felt kept this book good, but not great: - I felt like the books own identity was kind of confused. It's branded as being lighthearted and cozy, but it contains quite a few darker elements. I definitely didn't think it was a "fun" story as it's described in the blurb, so maybe the marketing was just off. - The characters were a little underdeveloped to me. I think so much time and effort was put into maintaining a large and complex cast (32 named characters by my count) that the characters ended up falling flat because there wasn't much room for growth or a dynamic characterization, and that actually includes the main characters. - To that point, this is one of those stories where you are asked to go along with main characters making stupid decisions with complete disregard for their own well-being. I don't enjoy that. I didn't feel I was made to empathize at all with Annie or Frances' motivations or convictions. - Finally, I think I'd need to do a reread to be able to say whether it would be possible to follow the book and understand the reveals if not for two extended sections where key connections are blatantly laid out through one character describing it at length to another. Those sections of the book read a lot like a "previously on" tv show episode preview, but maybe a more generous and genre-relevant comparison would be a Sherlock Holmes monologue. I just felt like it was a bit of a crutch to get the reader caught up I do have every intention to read the next book, especially since the end of this one laid the groundwork out for it. I definitely wonder whether that book will fare better by being able to leverage the familiar setting and characters and focus on fleshing them out, or if the connection to this story will feel too forced.