Love Saves the Day
By Gwen Cooper
Gwen Cooper’s new novel is, in a way, the converse of her memoir, Homer’s Odyssey.
While Homer’s Odyssey was about Cooper’s life with her cat, Love Saves the Day is about a cat’s life with her humans. The cat here is Prudence, a prim and proper tabby-and-white feline, whose human, Sarah, spent her salad days in New York City’s lively music scene of the late 1970s and 1980s. In fact, Sarah never got past her salad days of financial struggle, and as a result her grown daughter, Laura, gravitated towards security and a life uptown. Prudence is a silent observer of the rocky relationship between the two, and when Sarah does not come home one day, she winds up being taken in by Laura and her husband Josh. Like all but the most intuitive cats, Prudence has no idea what has happened to her human, and she wonders when Sarah will return to her. Little do Prudence, Laura and Josh realize the turmoil that the next few months will bring, as Laura comes to grips with her mother’s death, and with the fact that the only security in life is love.
Far deeper and more satisfying than a mere “cute cat book,” Love Saves the Day is the story of relationships and grief. While most of the book is told from Prudence’s point of view, you also get to spend time in Laura and Sarah’s world — a look back at New York City in the years its Lower East Side changed from a gritty, colorful and dangerous neighborhood into a gentrified and homogenized home for the wealthy. It makes you wonder where the line is between cleaning up a neighborhood and shattering its soul. Because great cities, after all, are like cats — even at their tamest, there is a wild soul that cannot be denied.
Love Saves the Day is sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes devastatingly tragic, and it holds your attention all the way through to its happy ending. For both cats and humans, it is one of this year’s must-reads.
Note: links to Amazon are Associate links — and for the month of January 2013, all Love Saves the Day commissions generated by my blog will go to Blind Cat Rescue
Looks like a great book. Thanks for writing about it.
Great review that piques our servant’s interest — she’s not sure, though, after reading some of the posts, whether or not she would be able to take the tragic parts. She’ll have to think about that. Sounds like a must-read, though, and thank you for sharing!
Our mom just finished reading this. She really enjoyed it but she found it rather sad since she lost her mom just a couple months ago.
Great review, Sparkle! I’m glad you made the distinction for all the Homer fans about Love Saves The Day being a novel and it will not disappoint Gwen Cooper’s fans. Shared with <3
We can’t WAIT to read this one.
Wonderful review, Sparkle!
xo, Katie & Glogirly
Wonderful review! All I will say about the Book is HAVE TISSUES! I cried through most of it but just love it!!! It also made me laugh so it evened up the emotions.
I am very happy to see some of the proceeds go to Blind Cat Rescue,I have been sponsoring a Cat there for years. It is such a wonderful Sanctuary.
Purrs & Head-bonks
Great review! I know this home of mine is going to love reading this book!
Purrs
This sounds like a great book. I’ll definitely have to check it out.
Excellent review – perceptive and right on cue. This book “spoke” to me for many reasons besides the fact that I share my life with several cats – or, should that be they consent to
share their life with me? The complexities of human relationships, the greed of cities, the coldness and lack of empathy of big firms , all interwoven with the plight of how we treat those that cannot speak for themselves. It’s all there. Make sure you buy the extra-absorbent tissues , and have a nice cup of good, hot lavender tea on hand.
And we’ve decided this is NOT a book to read while one is at lunch during work hours. Geez…it’s at least a 2 box kleenex read!
This is definitely on my must read list! Great review 🙂
Mum cried so much reading this book. Not about Prudence but about the heartbreak and sadness of those people and the pets lost in the building. She finds it hard to forgive New York for that and the greed.
The people in the story are beautifully written and, as such, mean we care for them very much. Thank you for a good review.
Dash
Your review makes me want to get this book for TW who’s sad that NYC is only about the rich and even Times Square looks like an amusement park.
Sounds like a great book.
It certainly sounds like something that would bring me to tears. Am I brave enough to go there is the question.
Wow, that sounds like a great book, Sparkle. We have to get this one, for sure!
good review – mom will have to add this to her read list!!
Thank you for the great review! Mom was going to the bookstore this week, we’ll tell her to keep her eyes peeled
This sounds like a great book, Sparkle. We’ll get the mom to check it out!
Great review! I love you describe great cities are like cats with wild soul.
Super book review sparkle. Love it.
hugs, Max, Bugsy and Knuckles
We think Mum might be interestedin that book.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
Wow ! Great Review, Miss Sparkle…Sound like a cat book my mom want to read….LOVE & CAT : )