A review by danielles_reads
The Goodbye Cat by Hiro Arikawa

emotional sad medium-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

“Wow, isn’t this great, Nana? You look so cute in the photos.”
Could he have made it any more obvious he was cat crazy? TMI, if you ask me.

Average rating: 3.29

I absolutely adored the author’s previous book, The Travelling Cat Chronicles, and though this collection had a few great stories, the overall quality was mixed. There were way too many references to stereotypical gender roles in the home that overshadowed the cat content. My favorite stories were the first, "The Goodbye Cat," and the last, "Life Is Not Always Kind," which both had the same sad but heartwarming vibes of TTCC. 

  • The Goodbye Cat: Sweet and emotional, with some interesting snippets into Japanese naming culture.
  • Bringing Up Baby: I did not appreciate the absolute incompetence of the father and how the mother was criticized for having low expectations of him. Their relationship was mostly negative and I don't see why they are together. In a non-patriarchal society, the story premise would be kind of cute but it's impossible to separate it from the frustration many mothers experience in real life. (Though I did laugh at the too real depiction of online communities saying everything is grounds for divorce lol)
  • Good Father - Bad Father: Yuck. I can't have any sympathy for a father that does literally nothing around the house and only has rude things to say to his family members.
  • Cat Island: Yet another incompetent dad relying on his wife. Though this story was definitely the most interesting of the three bad dad stories, and I liked the bit of magical realism, as well as the frank way it discussed how death affects loved ones. It also felt very Japanese.
  • The Night Visitor: Relatable as a cat owner, but since it didn't have any real plot or characterization, it felt kind of pointless.
  • Finding Hachi: It was great to see Hachi's life after the events of The Travelling Cat Chronicles, but half of the story was devoting to retelling the events of TTCC that didn't add much of anything! The ending was quite emotional though, and I liked the parallels between Satoru and his cousin. Also I love the very Japanese description of someone’s skin becoming so dark it “looked like it was boiled in soy sauce.”
  • Life Is Not Always Kind: I forget if these events were described in TTCC, but I don't think they were. This story rounded out that book nicely, and I really appreciated its frank discussion of death, and how it affects family members differently in ways they can’t fully comprehend.

I'm curious to see what Hiro Arikawa will write next, and I hope it's more along the lines of The Travelling Cat Chronicles than The Goodbye Cat.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings