I Am Pusheen the Cat by Claire Belton Padhusheen Singh — Pusheen to her friends — starts the day like any other: realizing that she will be late for class. What makes this day different? She is scheduled to present her dissertation on phytoquantum felineconomics in fifteen minutes! Grabbing the bag that contains her experiment, Pusheen jumps on her cherry Vespa motorscooter and jams it into top gear. She slaloms through traffic like Peekaboo Streak. As the college comes into view, she glances down at her Hello Kitty watch. She’s going to make it in time! Pusheen doesn’t see the cement mixer until its too late. Lifting into the air, Pusheen clutches her bag and waits for the ground to send her to the reincarnation bingo hall (or however the gods do it; she was never very orthodox). Click. In a haze of strange quarks, she activates her experiment. A moment later, she is twisting through the air to land safely on the ground…on all four of her paws. I Am Pusheen the Cat puts readers inside the bell on Pusheen’s collar while she tries to negotiate school, life, and love as a woman-sized cat. While Pusheen is a chubby, cuddly-wuddly striped gray kitty on the outside, inside she’s your typical twenty-something Indian-American. Just because she’s as adorable as a newborn baby in a suit of teddy bears doesn’t mean she can miss her shift at Pizza Moat (“Can I get a supreme, but hold the hairballs please.”) or stand Chet the Quarterback up on Friday night (“You’re lucky I’m a Furry.”) No, life as a one hundred sixty pound cat with the mind of a Ph. D. student isn’t easy, but it is interesting. ——————————————————————— A Book By Its Cover comedically (re)imagines stories, plots, and characters of books based entirely on the cover.
