Book Review: "The Hitch" by Sara Levine

This was one of the wildest, most creative books I’ve read in some time. I'll never look at corgis the same way again!

Rose is an anti-racist, secular Jewish feminist eco-warrior, a believer in eating healthy foods, and the owner of an artisanal yogurt business. She’s unmarried and doesn’t have children of her own, but she dotes on her six-year-old nephew Nathan and her beloved Newfoundland, Walter.

Rose is one of those people who knows everything about everything. She has an article, a study, a program to back up all of her opinions. And one of her opinions is that she should get to spend more time with Nathan, but her brother and sister-in-law don’t necessarily think she’s the best influence on him.

However, when her brother and sister-in-law take a vacation to Mexico, they agree to leave Nathan in Rose’s care. Rose is so excited; she has her spare bedroom redone for him, and has outlined a vegan meal plan for the week. But only one day into her caregiving stint, disaster strikes. When Rose, Nathan, and Walter are in the park, Walter attacks and kills a corgi.

Walter has never acted aggressively before. And when Nathan starts acting strangely, Rose figures it’s his reaction to the incident. But then Nathan tells Rose that the corgi’s soul is living inside him. And this dog is a troublemaker. If Rose can’t fix this, she’ll never be trusted to care for Nathan again.

Although the concept of the book sounds silly, it’s actually quite moving and thought-provoking. Rose is not the most likable character but she does grow a bit by the end, and she really does love Nathan. I’ll be thinking about this for a long while!!

Book Review: "Cursed Daughters" by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Oyinkan Braithwaite’s debut novel, My Sister, the Serial Killer, caught me by complete surprise when I read it in 2018. I couldn’t wait to see what she wrote next—although she made me wait until the end of 2025! This book is very different from her first but it is more evidence that she is a writer to be reckoned with.

On the day that they bury her cousin Monife, Ebun gives birth to a baby girl. This baby, named Eniiyi, resembles Monife so much, the family is convinced she is the reincarnation of her late aunt. They believe Eniiyi will follow the same path Monife did in life, right down to her tragic end.

In addition to the belief that Eniiyi is fated to meet the same end as Monife, there’s also the family curse: “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace...” This curse has left several generations of Falodun women brokenhearted.

When Eniiyi reaches womanhood, she saves a man from drowning and promptly falls in love with him. She then realizes the curse is hanging over her head. Her only recourse is to search for answers in the older parts of Lagos, to find a way out of her fated predicament. Can she break the curse and have the chance at happiness? Can she free the other women in her family?

There is such a vibrancy to the way Braithwaite writes. The city of Lagos is as much a character as Eniiyi and her family. The book follows each generation’s confrontation with the curse and the tragedy that befell Monife. It gets a little repetitive at times, but it was just so moving.

Book Review: "Cat Incarcerated" by Noah Nichols

If you're looking for a quirky, slightly zany, sarcastic, and good-natured book to read, look no further than Noah Nichols' Cat Incarcerated. It's a unique story (I haven't seen a book with this plot before), and Nichols' storytelling is very engaging.

Cade A. Tanner is the first to admit he was a fairly miserable person when he was drunk, which was pretty much always. He drove his wife Stephanie away, and found himself alone, with not much more than the food from his favorite Chinese restaurant to keep him company. But somewhere down the line he found the strength to kick his addiction, and started seeing the beauty of life without alcohol.

Then the unthinkable happens: Cade sees an adorable kitten in the middle of the street, practically playing in traffic. The man that Cade has become absolutely can't let the kitten (especially one so cute) meet its maker while he watches, so he rushes out to rescue it, and he is immediately struck and killed by a texting-and-driving teenager. The irony.

Then the even-more-unthinkable happens: Cade wakes up to find he has been reincarnated as, of all things, a kitten. (An even cuter one than the one he rescued, but that's neither here nor there.) As he struggles with where to find shelter and food, not to mention reconcile the fact that he is now a cat ("Will I have to lower my standards and start going to the bathroom...in a litter box?"), he finds even more surprises along the way, because he is ultimately rescued by his ex-wife. And she has become a barely functioning alcoholic.

The book gets a little zanier from there, but it never loses its sense of humor or its heart. Cade (to whom Stephanie has given the name Ethan) raises some interesting existential questions that only a cat who was once a man can ponder:

What if...what if there are multiple poor souls out there who're just like me? A man, a woman, a child, of whatever age or background, inexplicably stuck inside the bodies of cats or dogs or bears or angry badgers (hey, maybe that's why they always look so pissed off for no reason!), or any animal for that matter. What if there's actually a deeper meaning to all of this? Something that's bigger than individuality, a type of extraordinary thing that's meant to overcome with a group of misfits. Something that's meant to teach an incredible lesson as a whole.

Sometimes the book gets a little too witty and, at times, corny, for its own good. A few times I waited for the rimshot to follow some of the jokes (and I won't even try to CATalogue the cat puns). But at its heart, the story is fun and unique, and it made me smile, as I waited to see what Nichols had up his sleeve next. You'll need to suspend your disbelief, of course; if you're one of those people who can't accept the idea of a man being reincarnated as a cat, this isn't a book for you.

The author provided me a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks, Noah, for making this available, and for providing some great amusement and smiles!