Cat (Paperback)

I noticed all the reviews before me are from people living in England, so allow me to present a review from America. This book is not available in the American version of amazon.com, and I had to go to a Freya North web page to get to the UK version of amazon.com.

Marketing is an amazing thing. I notice that the cover of the original book shows a cute blond in a bike shirt, with the collar pulled over her face. I encountered this book as an audio CD at my local library. The cover is quite different. The Cat portrayed here looks a bit more empty-headed than the actual character. With her wide, blank stare, pink blushing cheeks, and overdone red lips, the cover could easily be at home on a porno tape, as she does look very "doable". Oh yes, the cover also depicts her daydreaming lustily of a pair of bicycler's thighs.

Another of the reviewers on this page points out that the bicyle lore is simplistic, and sometimes innaccurate. That may be so, but I like a novel that takes me into a new world, and gives me a lot of information on it. It may be simplistic, but it does cover all the races of the Tour de France, and how the winner is chosen. For the needs of the book, it gives you all you need if you just want to know a bit about the subject of cycling. I suspect this would be more than enough for most Americans, as we generally give it only minor attention only when one of our citizens is the leader. This probably makes us uncultured brutes, but with the cost of gasoline less than a third of what it costs in Europe, bicycles are not as revered here.

I also admire the author's lack of restraint in her language. Many (but not all) female authors who want to be sexy will not get as raunchy as the average guy writer. They will generally describe the embrace, maybe the copping of a feel, but then the chapter ends with the bedroom door closing. No problems like that with "Cat". The author not only gets extremely explicit in several sex scenes, but laces the entire book with the quaint :) notion that women actually think about sex frequently. Fact or fiction?

But it is the story itself that makes it a pleasant read. I already mentioned a lot of cycle lore. But I also liked the story of how Cat needs to prove herself as a writer to land the job of her dreams. I liked how it describes how a rookie female reporter has distinct disadvantages in getting stories, but how her looks also sometimes gets her foot in the door. And the Cat character truly loves the sport, and her passion for it really comes through.

Ok, "Bridget Jones's Diary" is probably a better book in that it portrays a very sympathetic portrait of a character with many flaws. But given the chance to nail Bridget or Cat, I'll take Cat hands down. Especially the one portrayed on the American cover.