Kitten by Stacey Yu

‘Strange, playful and intimate . . . I didn’t want it to end’ LUCY ROSE, author of The Lamb

‘[A] brilliant study of need, want, loneliness, and power . . . soft and sharp, totally in control, utterly deranged. I lapped it up’ KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE, author of Almost Life

‘A fresh, funny, and totally bewitching girl-meets-cat love story’ GINA CHUNG, author of Sea Change

A magnetic novel about a young woman who falls in love with her boyfriend’s cat.

Katie hasn’t spoken to her mother in a year when her boyfriend James introduces her to his cat Silver. A small, vulnerable, incorrigible ball of need, Silver’s acceptance of Katie cracks open something inside of her: an unravelling begins.

Fresh out of college and far from home, Katie is desperate to skirt the demands of adult life – especially because, as she promised her mother, the plan was to never grow up in the first place. Luckily, she has James: self-assured, generous, and seemingly happy to make decisions for them both.

When they go on holiday to James’s family’s seaside home, Katie’s attachment to Silver grows. Silver doesn’t mind that Katie can’t seem to get a job, hold her own at dinner parties, or make amends with her mother. Silver, who gets to misbehave spectacularly, be childish, be gross, and still get fed, seems to have the life Katie increasingly longs for. But as their bond intensifies, Katie’s other relationships reach tipping points. Soon, Katie must come to terms with what she really wants, and what she might have to risk to get it.

Delicately playful and unexpectedly heartfelt, Kitten is a sensitive reckoning with the allure of helplessness and the uncertainty of becoming yourself in a world that is as disorienting as it is full of hope and connection.

A playful, heartfelt debut novel — a coming-of-age story for modern times, for fans of Mona Awad, Ling Ma, and Elif Batuman.

About the Author: Stacey Yu is a Chinese American writer. She grew up between Texas, Arkansas, and California and currently lives in London. Kitten is her debut novel.

30 Jul 2026
 

Kitten: A debut novel about mothers, class, love, and the dizzying task of becoming yourself by Stacey Yu ISBN 9781399754316