Cat Lady: The Sunday Times bestseller and the latest funny, brilliant and bold fiction novel for 2023 from the author of So Lucky

Product Information

Don’t get me wrong, if you got rid of all the uncomfortable encounters, or at least toned it down a little, it would’ve had the potential to become quite an impactful story about mental health and self discovery, and at times it was. But sweet hell, some of the encounters and thoughts that the main character had were just unnecessary and outright disturbing. I did enjoy the development of some of the characters, especially (colleague designer) and how she fought for what she believed to be right within the company, even if it did feel a little half- hearted at times. In contrast to this though, others just outright disturbed me, the main being (creepy babe guy) who had a questionable understanding of what consent was at the best of times and was just straight weird. The moral of the story is, no one's life is perfect, which is told in both a humourous and poignant way.

Cat or no cat' Fearne Cotton'Really gets the reader to think about what matters in life Unputdownable and completely wonderful!' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Witty, thought-provoking and hilarious, Cat Lady is a triumph' The Unmumsy Mum'Dawn O'Porter challenges the stereotypes of the typical 'cat lady' with this beautiful and emotional read' Reader review⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'An ode to finding your people and a celebration of the small things that bring us together' Emma Gannon'I absolutely adored this book!' Reader review⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Funny, heart-wrenching and full of warmth' Sarah Morgan'A beautifully written book that I'd recommend to anyone' Reader review⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'A lovely onion of a book, layered with humour and emotion' Daisy Haggard'A joyous, touching, funny, sharp story - I cannot praise it enough. I’ve had people in life that have said to me ‘it’s just a cat’ .. well no, it isn’t ‘just’ a cat. They are family, companions. Well, mine absolutely are anyway. I think if people have never owned a cat they should never make comments. They truly are wonderful. I like to think I’ve got quite a varied sense of humour, and apparently this was “laugh out loud”, and maybe it is to some but hell no, not to me. This is the story of a woman who is unapologetically herself, a cat lady. Over the course of the book her life spirals in all different ways possible, and you do feel sorry for her as a character. But this book is just plain weird, it’s fifty shades of messed up. Some of the characters in this book were truly unlikeable and I absolutely despised them, such as Tristan (Mia's husband), Belinda (Tristan's ex wife) and Tristan and Belinda's circle of friends. Some of the things that Tristan, Belinda and their friends came out with were absolutely disgusting and I felt so sorry for Mia for having to deal with awful people like that in her life.

It’s safer for Mia to play the part that people expect. She’s a good wife to her husband Tristan, a doting stepmother, she slips on her suit for work each morning like a new skin.

Mia has it all. A fancy house, a husband, a stepson, a fancy job with a jewellery company and best of all, a cat that she loves with all her heart. Sometimes she has a bit more than 'it all' - there's her husband's ex-wife who spends way too much time at their house and has way more opinions about everything Mia's doing wrong than could really be considered appropriate. She also works for a spoiled over-privileged it-girl with no common sense or perspective. What the hell even was this book? I was expecting a wholesome story about a woman and her cat and I did not get that! I did enjoy some of the themes that the book explored but at times it was just outright disturbing. I tried to persevere with it and see if it could get any better (or worse) but it just started to make me feel so uncomfortable that I just couldn’t carry on. Mia has made all the right choices. She’s married, she has the nice house, the good career. But life isn’t about fitting into a box. And there’s another woman inside her who’s just clawing to get out . . .Mia, is a wonderful main character, she made me laugh (quite a lot), she's relatable, and her story broke my heart. I did find Mia quite relatable in some aspects (however, some things she did truly had me cringing and feeling disgusted). I think a lot of people worry about something happening to their fur babies, which obviously Mia really struggles with that. However, I thought it was quite problematic that she attends groups that are about particular things that she does not suffer from. I love Dawn O'Porter's books - I think I've read all of them to date. I loved this one too. I could relate to Mia's love for Pigeon and her wish to protect herself from just about every other living being. We learn about her challenging childhood and how Pigeon saved her from herself in her teens but much as I love my cats, I know that humans need other humans. As a self confessed wannabe ‘cat lady’, I really enjoyed reading Mia’s journey from her ‘safe’ existence to her self-realisation of the person she truly is - an independent cat lady living for herself. AD: Thanks to Tandem Collective UK and Harper Collins for my free copy of this book in return for an honest review]

This is another of those books about quirky oddballs finding their place in the world that have been super popular in womens’ fiction in recent years. Lots of them are very good, unfortunately this was not. Writing in first person present, Mia describes every tiny action of her life in minuscule detail - from what she puts into Oliver’s lunchbox, to having a shower, to her and Tristan’s grotesque middle-age sex. Maybe other readers would find constant references to Belinda’s juices hilarious, I didn’t. Nothing much happens in the first half, there’s a bit of awkward social commentary, and Mia reinforces every stereotype about people who love cats. Really gets the reader to think about what matters in life Unputdownable and completely wonderful!’ Reader review Beneath these anxieties is another insistent push-me-pull-you argument: will she be able to write, to think, if she pours her energies into creating another human being? The artists whom she most cleaves to – Suzanne Valadon, Louise Bourgeois, Gwen John, Barbara Hepworth and Tracey Emin – have alighted on different answers to this question. They have also often had to contend with the way that women who make art are treated: as outsiders, as eccentrics, as creators whose work must resist the accusation that its relation to their own lives renders it somehow lesser, “little more than an excretion”, merely “expunged from your feminine brain, just as you expel blood and milk from your feminine body”. It has a strong feminist voice that felt cathartic to read. Sometimes my heart was overflowing with tender feelings and the other times I wanted to punch someone. I love the “very strange group of friends”. Obviously I love Mia’s character. I love how everything turned out, even though I think there’s a lot of little holes where the story skipped from scene to scene. That’s fine, tho. It’s still very much coherent. I just wanted it to be a bit longer. Mia has been living in terms of what society expects from her, rather than what she wants in fear of judgement. However, when a particular event happens, she begins to live life for herself (and obviously her cat, Pigeon)Women who love their cats are said to be projecting on to them an intimacy they are unable to experience elsewhere Really gets the reader to think about what matters in life Unputdownable and completely wonderful!’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The heroine Mia is in her 40's with a successful career. She married her husband in her 30's and he's divorced and has a son who she is Stepmother to. However, her husband's ex still spends a lot of time at their house and Mia doesn't like her. Mia has a cat called Pigeon and neither her husband or his ex particularly like the cat. Her husband doesn't like the cat in their bedroom so they have separate rooms. Mia is quite a cold fish as a wife! I loved laughing with/at some of the characters and I was emotionally destroyed* as I watched some of the characters' lives unravel. I adored Mia’s love for Pigeon 🐈 and how Pigeon literally got her through each day. There was some really great characters in this book and some I really wanted to scream at. It was great how Mia learnt so much about herself through this story and learns to live. I really just think that this one wasn't particularly aimed for me. I didn't get the humour or wit and I haven't read any of Dawn O'Porter's other works to compare them to. I enjoyed the fact that the protagonist was an older lady - in her 40s but she wasn't relatable to me in any way, shape, or form. She was quite repulsive.Mia is 45, and happily married (separate bedrooms), lives in a nice house (originally bought by her hubby and his first wife), is a great step mum (although the first wife/mother is always popping round); has a great job (she has to micromanage the gormless chief executive) and is in love (with her cat, 'Pigeon') and is pretty much living the ideal conventional life, but is this the life that Mia wants? But life isn't about fitting into a box. And there's another woman inside her who's just clawing to get out . . .PRAISE FOR CAT LADY:'My book of the year' Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'A reminder to live your life your way. I've found with other Dawn O'Porter novels that her characters aren't fleshed out very well and it's still the case in this novel. I also think you need to be a cat lover to really appreciate some aspects of the story, so it didn't help that I am not a cat lover! I found some parts a bit off putting where she talks about her and Pigeon's special relationship! There are other parts that I won't spoil that I found even more off putting.