Now, Time for Something a Little Bit Different

During our first book club meeting, my friend and I decided what book to read next. Well, actually my friend decided - we figured it made sense to take it in turns to pick our next read. I was not surprised at what she did pick, as I had purposely put this book into the pile of possible reads, knowing that it would appeal to her immensely, due to the fact that the main character is a cat.

I wanted books that would be different to something I would usually pick and given this story was being told from the point of view of a cat, it hit that criteria straight away. The other reason I picked the book as a contender was the time travel like element. If something has time travel in it, then I will always be intrigued.

The book in question: Ghost Cat by Alex Howard.

The place we met to chat: Jim's in Wimborne. The cheesecake was a must, of course, and it had to be Biscoff for me!

Book Stats

Title: Ghost Cat

Author: Alex Howard

Rating (in books not stars): 3.5

Book in three words: humorous, historical, different

Book in one sentence: A comical, time-travelling tale that explores the changes in history, told from a unique point of view.

Thoughts

Right from the start I felt as if I was really going to like this book as it appeared to have a more supernatural feel than I was expecting. The premise of the story is that, Grimalkin (the cat), has his last day on Earth in 1902. From there, he becomes the Ghost Cat and follows the changes of the world over the next 120 years. As we learn at the beginning of the story, he has different 'lives' to live during those 120 years, three where he must 'stay', three where he can 'stray' and three where he can 'play'. I was particularly curious about how the 'play' lives would pan out as in those he would be able to touch objects; not just observe.

I love the idea of the book - the historical/time travel element was the most intriguing part for me as it gave me a sense of what different times/eras were like and then when it hit the 1990s-2010s I was able to reminisce and was particularly happy when there was a Friends reference. Each chapter/era ended with Grimalkin's observations which was a nice way to summarise what had happened and often led to some laughs.

Yet, by the end I feel like the whole point of the story was a little lost on me. The end of each era seemed too abrupt and I feel each era could have been explored a bit more, especially when Grimalkin was able to stray and play.

Right at the end, I thought 'is that it?'. I felt the ending was a bit abrupt, and while I usually love an epilogue, I felt it wasn't really needed for this particular story.

Would I Recommend the Book?

Although in the end, it wasn't quite my cup of tea, I would still recommend the book if you are looking for something different to read.

Would I reread it?

Probably not. I am glad that I read it and gave something different to my usual genres a go, but I have no desire to revisit this story.

Over to You

Have you read The Ghost Cat? What were your thoughts?

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In the next book club post, I will be discussing the book Lightlark by Alex Aster.