The Devious Book for Cats: A Parody
Fluffy & Bonkers (with Joe Garden, Janet Ginsberg, Chris Pauls, Anita Serwacki, and Scott Sherman)
Villard
Fiction, Comedy
Themes: Anthropomorphism, Felines
****+
Description
In modern times, it's all too easy to lose touch with one's own inner catness. We take our meals and our people for granted. We fail to appreciate the many moods of a nap. We hardly even stare anymore. When's the last time we played a proper game of shelf swat, anyway? Fluffy and Bonkers offer a guidebook for reclaiming our birthright, the profoundly simple joys of being Nature's perfect creation: a cat.
Review
This parody succeeds by never overstaying its welcome, offering many short articles instead of a few long, drawn-out ones. From the horror stories of the Suck Monster and the Crazy Cat Lady to the rules of Shelf Swat, from basic gift giving to the history of the felinism movement, "Fluffy" and "Bonkers" tell all. The authors, known collectively as "Action 5," are professional comedy writers, contributing to the parody news site The Onion (among other things); the professionalism shows, as they manage to find plenty of humorous topics and delivery methods. (I've read more than enough half-baked attempts that keep harping on the same not-funny premise to appreciate that.) They also strike a nice balance on the tone, acknowledging the independent feline nature without belittling pet owners or indoor cat-keeping. A fun, lighthearted book that any cat-lover should be able to appreciate.