Oh this really warmed my heart! As a cat lover I knew I’d enjoy this book but even I was blown away how beautifully written this is! So heartwarming and cosy… a real tonic for cold evenings! Lovely!

First published in 1999, Mayumi Inaba’s memoir is a classic in Japan. A piece in which award-winning poet and fiction writer Inaba looks back over twenty years punctuated by life with her cat Mii. But, it’s not whimsical or conventionally sentimental, some scenes border on harrowing. There are lyrical passages and snippets taken from Inaba's poetry but this frequently leans towards austere, emotionally charged yet restrained. In 1977, when Inaba was still trying to establish herself as a writer, she found a kitten shoved into a high-up hole in a fence close to her home in western Tokyo. Inaba rescued the kitten and decided to keep her. She named her Mii. Soon Mii and Inaba became bound up with each other, Inaba slowly adjusting her rhythms to suit Mii’s – and vice-versa. From the chaos of the late 1970s onwards, through divorce, economic crises, job losses, momentary despair, and a search for a settled home, Mii was the only constant in Inaba’s life. Her chief companion in Inaba’s search for ‘meaningful solitude.’

As a representation of a single woman’s life in urban Japan, and a recreation of Inaba’s writer’s journey, this is quite arresting. But I found it most compelling in its later stages when Inaba’s concerns about Mii, directly and indirectly, raise important questions about the nature of bonds between humans and domesticated animals as well as the ethics of ‘pet-keeping’ in general. After her divorce, Inaba couldn’t afford somewhere with outside space, so ended up moving to a high-rise apartment. Although it was obviously a decent, safe building for a single woman, it was completely unsuited to a cat who loved to roam. It’s there that a bewildered Mii began her gradual decline. Inaba doesn’t shy away from documenting Mii’s depression or her increasingly-frail physical state – or the extreme measures Inaba took to keep her alive.

I found a number of Inaba’s decisions about Mii difficult to relate to or endorse. Inaba opted to prolong Mii’s existence well beyond the point where Mii was capable of functioning independently. It’s clear Inaba was very much a ‘bitter end’ person in relation to Mii, and I’m much less convinced by that stance. But Inaba’s account of her haphazard decision-making around Mii’s well-being could be impressively honest even when Inaba’s actual choices made me angry. For me, Inaba’s struggle to work out what to do for Mii underlined the need to confront how we approach pain and dying for companion animals. Although, there’ve been momentous shifts in thinking about the welfare of companion animals in the years since this was written, particularly in areas like pain management, those changes haven't automatically translated into better living conditions for individual animals.

What compromises between human and animal needs are reasonable? What level of animal discomfort is acceptable? What might constitute a ‘good’ or appropriate death for a companion animal? These are all questions that remain relevant and that Inaba grapples with here. Ones so often overlooked in books about life with a pet or in standard depictions of human-animal relationships. Inaba doesn’t reach any resounding concrete conclusions. As Mii continued to deteriorate it’s clear Inaba was essentially improvising, caught between wanting to do the right thing for Mii and an overwhelming fear of loss, of the beginning of mornings without Mii. Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

This is a short novella detailing the life of a cat, from the moment the author finds her as a kitten to her final breath. The illustrations of the cat to introduce each section are charming but they seem to depict a tabby rather than a generic calico (3 colour fur cat). I really liked the descriptions of playing with Mii as a kitten charming.

However, our author’s life takes a turn: she loses her job, throws herself into full time writing and doesn’t move to Osaka when her husband is transferred but instead writes, gets drunk and comes back late at night. Mii is waiting for her and desperate for some attention. Our author also forgot to get Mii neutered so there’s a trip to the vet when Mii’s pregnancy goes wrong. When the author gets divorced from her husband, she and Mii then move to a flat where Mii lives out the rest of her days.

This isn’t a cute book about the uplifting effect of cats. This is a memoir of someone’s cat and the focus seems often to be when the cat was in trouble sufficient to drag the author out of her writing rather than recording lots of anecdotes about how cute and wonderful and mischievous cats can be. A missed opportunity. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I cried.
Books rarely make me cry, but it was the mixture of raw lyrical prose, heartfelt poems, a sweet cat and her human being each other's life partners, and the fact that my cat is growing older and I live far from her.
I don't know if I'm in the right moment for books that make me cry... but this one was absolutely beautiful regardless. It made me reflect on grief, and love, and how to love is to feel intensely (for better or for worse).
It is important to cherish what we have in the present moment, whilst also knowing death is a part of life. Easier said than done, but... I want to live like that.
Thank you, Inaba-san.

The book started off as a bit of a snooze fest, with lengthy descriptions of the author’s life before and during her early years with Mii. However, my attention was captured when she delved into her crumbling marriage. She writes, "Since my husband had left, Mii and I had become closer than ever. Our intimacy was spun without words and in time formed into an unbreakable bond. We slept in the same bed, entrusting our bodies to each other, snuggling together, and in the morning the first thing we saw was each other."

While this passage is beautifully written, it reinforced my initial impression from the first few chapters that perhaps the author wasn’t suited for pet ownership. As the story progressed, it took on a dreary and increasingly disturbing tone. Even during Mii’s near-death experience, the author exhibited little restraint in her descriptions, offering a stark portrayal of how Mii died that felt unsettling and excessive.

Ultimately, while the writing has its moments of beauty, I found the narrative difficult to engage with, as the heavier themes overshadowed the lighter aspects of the story.

first things first, thank you so much for the arc copy!

as much as i wanted to love this book it somewhat disappointing. i just couldn't stand the author and how cruel is was to Mii up to the very end, she didn't treat me like a proper friend and companion. she was the one who clinged to Mii after what happened to her husband, she made it a point to be attached to the cat but only when it's convenient for her. though this book is beautifully written i just couldn't sympathize the author and how shameless she described Mii until the very end.

One evening, the author goes out for a walk and discovers a cat who has been stuck into a hole in a fence. She rescues the cat, brings her home, and names her Mii. Mii is extremely young and has to navigate her new world. Inaba is also lost and feeling trapped by her life. She bonds with Mii and both grow and accept changing life circumstances. The book describes episodes from the 20 years they spent together.

Many of the chapters end with poems written by the author. These poems were nice. The first part of the book was enjoyable and at times very sweet. However, as the chapters went on, I began to get more uncomfortable with how Inaba seemed to cling to Mii in ways that were detrimental to both of them. The way she opted to deal with Mii's aging left me wondering about how stable Inaba was and feeling sorry for Mii. And at the end of the book, I really wondered what happened with Inaba's apartment.

As a cat lover I adored this book. The perfect gift for cat lovers: a beloved Japanese modern classic about our special connection with cats, and how they can change our lives over the course of a lifetime.

I did feel the author’s love for Mii throughout this, that was clear. Mii was apart of her life for over two decades, and anyone who has bonded with a pet knows how beautiful that is. However, I really struggle with the last 30% or so. Mii was clearly not well, yet there were no attempts to do what was best for her. As a cat lover myself, reading in graphic detail how much she was suffering and how little she was taken to the vet was so incredibly upsetting. I wish this book focused more on Mii’s life before her illness, but I also wish Mii’s best wishes were taken into account.

Oof. This was one of my most highly anticipated books of 2024 and did it ever let me down.

***Heavy content advisory for pet cruelty, pet illness, pet death, and posthumous observations.***

At first, I found the writing style gentle and beautifully descriptive. I felt like I was experiencing the spring season in Fuchu, and the descriptions of the places were wonderful. I also liked the poems that concluded many of the chapters. Sadly, my enjoyment didn’t last long: the author subverts this beauty by using her skill at descriptive language cruelly.

This book isn’t the beautiful reflection on pet ownership that it’s billed as. It’s bleak and upsetting and almost devoid of emotion and warmth (no, writer, constantly saying you were sobbing isn't enough to convey emotion). It’s mostly about a self-absorbed woman (who has no business having a pet) whining about her life while self-destructing with the cat as a passenger (that’s sometimes at the sharp end of the author’s cruelty). While it was sad to watch the author unravel, it was tricky to empathize with someone so hellbent on self-destruction. This was compounded by her cruelty to Mii: not spaying her or taking her for routine vet care, transporting her to the ER vet in a paper bag, leaving her scared when she’d climbed too high because the author enjoyed the sound of the cat screaming, locking her in a cupboard, finding a fatal intestinal blockage “funny”, taking a dying, change-averse cat on vacation, even the cruelty in keeping such a sickly pet alive as her health began to dramatically fail. The absence of any reflection, development, or self-awareness about this underscored how unfit she was to care for a cat. Mii deserved a more dignified death than the author allowed her to die slowly and painfully over a two-week period. There’s no need to tell us in excruciating detail about the cremation how Mii’s posthumous body looked. It’s obvious that the author isn’t an animal lover and I can’t honestly recommend this to people who are. The upsetting parts of this 20-year relationship are the focal point: Mii’s emergency surgery, Mii getting lost, Mii’s death. I mean, around 35% of this book is the cat’s health failing and her death. We aren’t shown any sort of connection, love, or warmth between the MC and the cat.

The author is a skilled writer but not only is this not a good showcase of her talent, it also paints her as a bit of a villain.

Anyone who has loved and lost a pet does not need to put themselves through the trauma of this book. I’m deeply worried that this was translated ten years after it was published because healing cat fiction is making waves in the English-speaking readership at the moment. Don’t make the same mistake I did based on the sweet cover design and blurb: this is a bleak, upsetting story that contains subject matter that animal lovers and guardians might find distressing.

Technical things that bugged me:
➜ We’re told Mii is a calico. While the illustrations are beautiful, why aren’t they calico cats?
➜ Original Japanese title appears to be “Mornings Without Mii”. The French translation of this book is called “20 ans avec mon chat” (20 years with my cat). I have no idea why English language publishers changed it but it but the original title is so much more fitting: this is a book that mostly talks about pet health declination and death. Also, “Mornings with my Cat Mii” sounds so juvenile.
➜ Britishisms and modern slang in the translation. This book takes place in the 70s-90s in Japan but we’ve got boop, paw beans (I think they mean toe beans), blep, etc. I also find Britishisms jarring in translated works and dampen the authenticity of the work for English speakers outside England.

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted by Random House UK, Vintage through NetGalley.