The Eagle Time Book Club: Now reading Whatever

Theory: The author is a cat.

She does not seem to own cats because she doesn't, because she is one. This is also why she cares if cats "act out of character" despite their already being magical detectives. Asking a vet questions about cats? Cover for her true identity.

I like this. It is the official first entry in the "List of motives" chart I am creating right now.

LIST OF MOTIVES

1. Sofie Kelly is actually a cat.

Now we'd have to identify exactly what type of "being a cat" she is. Perhaps she is just a regular cat at a keyboard (as opposed to being a regular cat in a ceiling or one of unusual length). She has mastered *cough* the english language and her first act of cat-typery is to create a very Mary Sue fanfiction where two self projections (one of whom embodies her daily struggle with nepeta (guess what that means "catnip" DIDN'T KNOW THAT DID YA (okay well I didn't))) are imbued with magical powers.

However, this concerns me. Are the "friends" listed in her acknowledgments actual people or other cats? Are they all lies? If they are people why did those people not report this literate cat to the proper authorities? If they are other cats then that means that there are MORE TALKING CATS IN REALITY.

Maybe she is just a cat who takes the form of a human. Maybe a giant skin-suit or robot or REAL MAGIC or something I dunno I'm not a cat. But this is even MORE CONCERNING. Now ANYONE who you meet could be a TALKING CAT IN DISGUISE. Maybe the phrase: "I'm more of a cat-person." has a terrifying double meaning us mere humans don't understand! Maybe all those stories where witches turn into cats are really the other way around!



Okay don't watch that. I know I didn't. I just searched "Salem Sabrina" and picked the one that looked most obnoxious. It's only purpose is to break us out of this terrifying cat discussion and lead into.

CHAPTER 1 REVIEW: PART 2

Ancillary characters

Admittedly, I was a little confused at the introduction of another non-cat character. I guess the novelty of the books' genre was such that I had assumed that any other characters were unnecessary. I had legitimately expected a book, where a woman does nothing but talk to her cats for 25 chapters.

I probably set my expectations too high.

Chapter one introduces 5 non-cat-non protagonist characters, the first one, Fred the Funky Chicken, is talked about non-stop for the first two pages until he is tossed into a garbage can. The second, Rebecca, is notable only for her role as Owen's (LEARN THE CAT'S NAME PEOPLE) "dealer" and the origin of Fred the Funky Chicken.

Gosh I hope she is the one who dies.

There is then generic library assistant whose name I'm not going to bother looking up. (Oh yes, our protagonist is a LIBRARIAN. A librarian who goes to work in yoga pants (either that or Cat Kelly forgot to have her change (you guys are going to see a lot of nested parenthetical statements (GET USED TO IT))))

Then we have two old men. "BUT HOW," you ask, "CAN YOU HAVE TWO OLD MEN? Wouldn't we get confused? I mean is there even a way to give old men distinguishing character traits?"

Never fear, cat-lovers! Sofie Kelly has made it very clear that these two elderly gentlemen are INDIVIDUALS.

One is a grumpy old man and the other is a kindly old man.

Kindly old man is a carpenter and grumpy old man is an actor.

At the end of chapter one OWEN (magically) appears sitting on grumpy old man's head.

That's some real SAT-UATIONAL HUMOR there!

JOKES.

ugh.


So given that END OF CHAPTER SHOCKER, and combining it with the little story tid-bit they tucked in at the front of the book, I can assume that the "magic" of magical cats is that they can teleport?

Is a teleportation really that magical? I mean, I think with the myriad of abilities "magic" bestows merely moving from one place to another isn't that...wait...where have I...

OH GOD.

Show Content

Spoiler

WHY DIDN'T I SEE THIS BEFORE? WHY DID I NOT MAKE THIS CATNECTION UNTIL NOW?

I had wondered, Mr. Hussie, why, when applying the label "Omnipotent" to your characters, do you merely gift them with the ability to transport objects?

I mean COME ON. You could do SO MUCH MORE. Omnipotent is the kind of phrase or ability that invokes those deep philosophical questions like "Can a magical cat make something so magical that they can't even magic it themselves???" Why is it that such a potentially critical character-trait is so poorly underdeveloped?

I would love, love, to attribute Mr. Hussie's lack of creativity to his studying and reading of this very magical novella, but back in Feb '11 when it was first flying off the shelves we were so deep in contrived-troll-analogue-for-bullshit that his ongoing misunderstanding of "omnipotence" simply failed to register.

Maybe the connection is much deeper and more subtle than foreknown plagiarism. Maybe these two well renowned authors, when deciding to apply these broad sweeping terms to their characters, due to some level of shared subconscious default, looked at the endless possibilities of the word they had typed and said: "Awesome, these guys can teleport ANYWHERE now!"

And with that they were content.