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The only reason I remember reading The Alchemist's Cat as a child is because at some point my picture was in a local paper for something or other with the caption 'Rebecca [Lastname], reading her favorite book.' The book was The Alchemist's Cat and I was INCREDIBLY indignant because it wasn't my favorite book, it was just the book I happened to be reading at that time, I didn't even like it that much, it was weird and depressing, WHAT WAS THIS JOURNALISTIC INACCURACY. >:( And that is when I lost my faith in the press.

Anyway! Yesterday, I started rereading The Alchemist's Cat, a middle-grade historical fiction novel about intelligent kittens.

In the first chapter, a lady cat bangs the (cat) devil (I think? He never appears again but it's STRONGLY IMPLIED.)

In the second chapter, the human protagonist's whole family dies of the plague; then his guardian is murdered; then he's framed for the murder and pressed into slavery by an evil alchemist.

In the fourth chapter, the lady cat, starving and alone, finally gives birth, and then the cat midwife (there are cat midwives apparently) tries to eat the runtiest kitten.

( It gets worse from there. Middle-grade was dark in the nineties! )