FLUFF TO MUFF

Debut author Hill’s illustrated book profiles bad kitty antics in a comedic work for adults.

The fact that the title contains a slang word for female genitalia is the first clue that adults are the intended audience for this uneven attempt to satirize a cat owner’s love-hate relationship with their feline companion. The author’s loosely rhyming text, framed around crude expletives and sexual references, encompasses accounts of early morning cat yowls, barefoot hairball splats, and a cat’s penchant for presenting its rear end to its owner (“Her standard view is an ASSHOLE TO THE FACE. / Pray NOTHING IS RELEASED, and she gets a taste”). Other events include a vet’s expensive feline rectal exam and the cat’s owner’s bedroom encounter with a date; although the narrator “hasn’t been laid in over a year,” her cat’s stares and nauseating “fresh new dumps” in the litter box kill the mood. Schultz offers colorful, full-page, cartoon-style illustrations that match the general tone. The images are polished in style and include an amusing detail of a comical rat that serves as a silent but expressive observer on each page; the rodent makes use of a “BARF BAG” when the narrator steps on a hairball, for example. The text, in a hand-drawn style, adds interest, sometimes curving across the page with uppercase words in different colors for added emphasis. Overall, this book is likely to appeal to fans of a small but distinct subgenre of adult humor books that specifically target cat misbehavior, which include Stop Meowing and Go the F*ck to Sleep by Rosa Silva (2017) and Cats Are A**holes: A Coloring Book of Adorably Bad Kitties (2022) by Caitlin Peterson.

Some visual fun, but its crude, adult humor may have limited appeal.