This is one of those stories that grabs onto you from the beginning and pretty much never lets go. I was apprehensive about reading this book, because I’m not really that much of a cat fan (more of a dog pet person myself), but the blurb on the cover kind of hit me, and I was intrigued about finding out more about a blind kitten.
One thing that got me right from the start was the same thing Gwen talks about in her book throughout, and that’s the wrong impression someone gets from expectations of Homer right from the start. People expect this little kitten to be helpless, and you immediately find out that he’s nothing but that. He’s resourceful, full of life and pretty much the life of any party because no one ever taught him that he’s supposed to feel sorry for himself, or even that he’s blind. He is blind from the very early days of his life, so he’s never even known what it’s like to see. But he turns out to be the bravest, most resilient little tyke one might ever experience.
The story deals with Homer, Vashti and Scarlett (who are two of Gwen’s other cats), and it specifically deals with the life of Gwen herself. Where the story starts to bog down a bit is when it gets into Gwen’s own story, and mainly during the first half of the book, it really does sort of slow down as we start to experience more of her memoir than the story of Homer and his fellow cat family. Then it moves onto the author’s love life with Laurence, before it moves onto its conclusion.
However, it’s still a strong recommendation from me because the strongest moments of this memoir come from reading about Homer himself and how nothing you do ever stops him from completely enjoying life as it was meant to be lived. A couple of (SPOILERS HERE) critical moments also make up the narrative to where the story becomes where it deserves its bestseller status, specifically every time Homer experiences a new home and has to acclimate, the time Homer comes to the rescue of Gwen (when a stranger breaks into her house), the horrific period that Gwen goes through during 9/11 when the towers come crashing down (and she lives 5 blocks from Ground Zero), and a gut wrenching moment where Homer hits older age and runs into a near death experience towards the end of the book.
Four (4) out of Five (5) stars: 4/5.