The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats

The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats
By Clea Simon

When I saw this book, I was really hoping it would solve a few mysteries for me regarding my human. For example, how come is her sense of time so off kilter that I never seem to get dinner on schedule? And why does she insist on picking me up when it’s quite clear that I’m in no mood to be bothered? So imagine my disappointment when I glanced through it and realized that it’s basically a book-long essay about the human female relationship with felines, and a bunch of emotional stuff that only humans understand or care about. Darn!

My human, on the other hand, took to this book immediately because, like the author, she was a punk rock fan who had been a rock journalist. Let me mention right now that I really don’t think the ability to write about loud music is the best qualification for any human who wants to be a cat’s assistant. Being female does seem to help, though — if it was left to my human’s boyfriend, who knows if we’d ever get fed at all? In any case, author Clea Simon delves into feline mythology and talks to a lot of human females about their cats — bonding with them, living with them, caring for them and even hoarding them. Along the way she examines her relationship with her senior cat, Cyrus. All this is okay for humans — if they want to romanticize their relationship with us kitties, fine. But frankly I was a little bored by it. Not only that, my human wouldn’t even let me chew on the pages. So while humans might enjoy it, cats may want to give this one a pass.