Review: A Hard Luck Life
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 21, 2013
This was a book that I was really looking forward to reading and seeing what it was about.  As it turns out it was a number of little things that diminished the story for me.  As with all critiques, these are my personal opinions and others have and will continue to feel differently.  The author, Dina Porell, gives us a story that some might recognize from other works by other authors.  We follow the life of kitten from the time of his birth.  Unusually, he is a single child, having no other litter mates.  This was my first contention with the story.  His family lives on the streets and alleys, fending for food.  His father has to range further and further afield to get food to feed his family and runs afoul of some mean cats.  At this point I started to think of "Gangs of New York", not only the movie but the overall genre of stories of good, normal people running into gang territory and danger.  Further mishaps strike the kitten's family and himself until he finds himself alone and desolate.  He makes on friend, only to lose him to a woman and the comforts of becoming a house cat.  All the time the growing kitten remains leery of the world around him and especially of humans, even the ones who try to befriend and care for him.  Caught and put in a shelter, he is eventually adopted by a nice male human.  The kitten finally receives his name, "Alex," and bonding occurs between the man and Alex.  Sadly, Alex is unwilling to share his human with the human's mate and things get dicier for him.One of the problems that I had with this story is that I never got the feeling of seeing the world through the eyes of the cat, though the author did try.  Again, this may be due to my own opinions and expectations.  There was also a need of some editing.The author's heart is in the right place and gives us a PSA at the end of the story about the plight of cats on the streets.  Again, there was just something that did not click with me properly.  Please do not take my review as a discouragement from reading this story.