By TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER
Something Worth Saving
By Sandi Ward
Kensington Books (2018)
304 pages
Your cat has something important to say to you.
Sadly, you’re not as fluent in Cat as you wish you were. She meows, and she could want many things or nothing. You might think you know but, as in the new book “Something Worth Saving” by Sandi Ward, she knows her meows are something worth saying.
More than anyone in the world, Lily loved her Charlie.
It was he who noticed her alone in a kitten-kennel in the shelter. He was undeterred by her broken leg and the limp it caused, and he held her all the way home, all those years ago. He was her favorite human and she knew when he was hurting.
Like now, when she saw bruises on his ribs and his arm. Lil knew what bruises were — the man who broke her leg gave her first-hand knowledge of them — but she didn’t know who’d given 14-year-old Charlie his.
Charlie wouldn’t say. He didn’t say much these days.
He hadn’t, really, since Mom asked Dad to move out. Lily wasn’t sure what that was all about; Dad was her second-favorite human but the situation might’ve had something to do with the strong water he drank and the way it made his eyes red.
The whole family was upset about Dad moving out. Kevin, the oldest son, had to become “the man of the house,” and Lily was surprised at how aggressive he’d gotten and how he hated Charlie’s time spent with his friend, Reynaldo. Victoria was taking risks with her boyfriend, Aidan, and though Lil knew it was some kind of human mating thing, she didn’t quite trust Aiden. And then there was Mark, who was supposed to be remodeling a room for Mom but he was really remodeling her heart. Almost everybody liked him – even the family’s German Shepherd did, but not Dad. Lil understood that Dad saw Mark as a threat.
The immediate concern, however, wasn’t the big people in the house; Lil worried most about her Charlie. He couldn’t go on being hurt, and she could only do just so much to help him.
Ah, humans were such a weird species …
Even if you tend to roll your eyes at first-“person” pet stories, it’s hard not to be charmed by the narrator inside “Something Worth Saving.”
Wise, observant, and admittedly spoiled, Lily the cat is a purr-fect storyteller for a tale of a torn-apart family that must repair broken lives and hearts. Author Sandi Ward doesn’t let Lily become a caricature, though; this is no cartoon cat with cutesy commentary, and she’s not a forced-funny wisecracker. Instead, Lil’s dogged determination to understand what’s going on is happily, believably cat-like, and reading about it is like peeking between the ears of a beloved and very Zen family pet.
Cat lovers, of course, shouldn’t wait one extra second to get their paws on this book. Neither should anyone who wants a light, almost-profanity-free story they can suggest to their bookclub. If that’s you, “Something Worth Saving” is something worth reading.
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.