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A review by ergative
Mr Perkins Takes Charge: A tale of a very superior cat by Suzanne Stephenson, Suzanne Stephenson
0.5
Oh, dear, oh dear. This was such a charming conceit--the solicitors' office cat meddles in everyone's business to improve their lives for the better. But beyond the conceit, there was nothing in this book that I enjoyed reading. The prose was plodding and repetitive. THe dialogue was contrived and characterless. The characters themselves were stock figures, rather than people. One of the lawyers adopts a refugee family because he's lonely and has a big house. For the rest of the book, they are referred to as 'his refugee family', because that is their role: they are refugees. They never even get names--unlike everyone's pet, who is given a name. To be sure, in a book about a cat, it makes sense that all the pets are named. I just rather wish that people were afforded the same respect.
Worst of all, the stock roles assigned to each personality-less individual were tainted by many, many unthinking, outdated gender stereotypes.
When some children have difficulty with literacy at school, the little girl is only interested in shopping and fashion, and her mother wants her to be a model. The little boy is interested in math and science.
The headmaster's wife herself works full time at the local secondary school as a teacher, but what she teaches is 'home economics', and she's still responsible for cooking dinner every night, which is inedible (hahaha!), and no one eats it, and as a result her children are fat and have pimples from relying on chips. Hahahaha the female partner is responsible for cooking, no one tells her that she needn't do this domestic labour, so for over a decade she's been taking on extra responsibilities she didn't need to undertake, and getting blamed for the health of her children. Because womens be cooking, right?
The lawyers themselves are all men, except for one token woman, whose life difficulty that the cat solves invovles a reluctance to get married and have children. Because womens need to make babies, right?
One lawyer's life difficulty involves an overbearing wife who needs to be divorced. Another lawyer's life difficulty involves an overbearing mother whose influence must be cast off. Because womens are just a ball and chain of shackles, right?
The secretaries are both women. Of course.
Very, very disappointing.
Worst of all, the stock roles assigned to each personality-less individual were tainted by many, many unthinking, outdated gender stereotypes.
When some children have difficulty with literacy at school, the little girl is only interested in shopping and fashion, and her mother wants her to be a model. The little boy is interested in math and science.
The headmaster's wife herself works full time at the local secondary school as a teacher, but what she teaches is 'home economics', and she's still responsible for cooking dinner every night, which is inedible (hahaha!), and no one eats it, and as a result her children are fat and have pimples from relying on chips. Hahahaha the female partner is responsible for cooking, no one tells her that she needn't do this domestic labour, so for over a decade she's been taking on extra responsibilities she didn't need to undertake, and getting blamed for the health of her children. Because womens be cooking, right?
The lawyers themselves are all men, except for one token woman, whose life difficulty that the cat solves invovles a reluctance to get married and have children. Because womens need to make babies, right?
One lawyer's life difficulty involves an overbearing wife who needs to be divorced. Another lawyer's life difficulty involves an overbearing mother whose influence must be cast off. Because womens are just a ball and chain of shackles, right?
The secretaries are both women. Of course.
Very, very disappointing.