Who Would Notice If You Were Disappearing?

After Penny’s cat, Popcorn, goes missing, her boyfriend thinks a good way for her to get out of her depression over her cat being gone is to pet-sit. Her boyfriend’s client needs a cat sitter, and he thinks Penny would be perfect. Penny at first disagrees because she is too heartbroken over Popcorn. After enough begging from her boyfriend, though, Penny agrees to cat-sit Godfrey. Once Penny takes Godfrey in, strange, unnatural things begin to happen at her house. Is there something spooky about the house, or is it more sinister than Penny realizes? 

When I see the word cat on anything, I pounce. Normally, the stories I have seen have portrayed cats as either good or morally grey. This is the first book that I read that made me wonder if a cat could be truly evil. Godfrey starts nice. He is very affectionate to Penny and always wants to be by her side. He brings her dead animals and is not friendly with anyone else but her. Weird and disgusting, but not that out of the ordinary for cat behavior. However, Godfrey is fed prepackaged meat that his vet supplies, which looks and smells hazardous. Godfrey’s stools are not normal and attract numerous bugs. 

Penny starts to think there is something wrong with Godfrey. She raised her own cat and worked at a cat shelter for a while and knew the behavior that she was seeing was unusual, but anytime she tries to tell her boyfriend or the cat’s vet, they gaslight her every time. They claim she is overreacting or that it is known cat behavior. Even though she doesn’t agree with them, she stuffs down her emotions. She doesn’t want to be perceived as a problem or to make anyone mad at her, which I found heartbreaking. I understand her backing down with the vet, but you would think her boyfriend would try to support her instead of making her feel crazy. 

It makes you wonder why she doesn’t just leave. Unfortunately, Penny doesn’t have that much of a strong support system. Her body physically starts to morph and change the longer that Godfrey hangs out with her, but nobody says anything about her horrifying appearance. Her boyfriend tells her that she is doing great, which makes you wonder if he is an idiot, doesn’t care, or is somehow sinister himself, and her friends don’t say anything. Penny starts to pee in the bed she and her boyfriend share, but he shows no concern at all.

The only person who has somewhat of a concern for her is her editor. She is a cartoonist. The editor asks about her mental health because the drawings she has been sending in were quite disturbing. The problem is Penny doesn’t remember sending him anything. When she checks her sent folder, she finds the illustrations she sent were horrifying and looked so different from her drawing style. 

When she does try to get help from doctors, she isn’t helped at all. Because of her insurance, she can only go to a particular doctor who didn’t have an opening for months. It makes you realize how alone you are when there is literally no one on your side. That is the craziest part of the book. Knowing something is wrong when no one believes you. 

There is an interesting aspect of this book that I have never seen before. We actually get to see Penny’s drawings before and during her current issues. It adds another layer to the book because we see firsthand what Penny’s mental state is like and at what point it starts going downward. The illustrations are a great touch, and I wish more books did this. 

Overall, I liked the book because it is more like a warning. Penny is perfect prey for the supernatural: her family is dead, her boyfriend is not caring, and her friends are not around as much. It is important to have people who are around you that will listen to you in a crisis and notice when you are deteriorating so that something can be done about it. This would definitely be a good thriller for Halloween because it raises a basic fearful question: Do you have someone who will notice differences in you or if you are in trouble?