Reviewed by Carmen Tenorio for Readers' Favorite

The Nine Lives of Felix the Tomcat is about the adventures of a clever tomcat whose nine lives are eaten up by the choices and the places he gets himself into. This self-taught cat-savant is convinced that life is for seeking culture and knowledge, especially with the help of his Ipad. He started off in Pittsburgh's seedy streets and neighborhood but was able to worm his way and settle in a mansion within a gated community of the nouveau rich in the suburbs. This occasionally pompous feline is also a self-confessed intellectual who digs Google and cable tv and believes that he stands out in a clowder of cats because, unlike the common illiterate housecat or moggy, he's bold enough to act as if he has an IQ of a genius, even if gets himself into daring or fun situations where he sometimes bites off more than he can chew. This insightful and knowledgeable kitty won't hesitate to school the reader about almost everything under the sun, giving his often hilarious comments about feline survival and the art of war, undocumented migrants, tradition, projectiles, Johnny Cash, or how much should he be paid when he accepts the offer to teach at Harvard.

If cats could write, The Nine Lives of Felix the Tomcat is a humorous representation of their mind and spirit. Done in the first person point of view, the book puts you in the shoes of, or at least in the sharp-clawed paws of a tomcat as it recalls and seeks its own adventure. Fictional author Felix the Tomcat is the yin to the real human author M.P. Frank's yang, his alter ego or the very epitome of chaos in the otherwise efficient and orderly doctor's office. By the looks of it, it seems that it's the cat who dominates the joint writing of the memoir and it is easily seen in its unpredictable, funny, and disordered notes, though kudos to the ordered chapter sequence and titles in the Table of Contents, which is most probably influenced by the human writer. Pacing can be a bit fast as a tomcat would want it, but it's an easy read. Of course, a lot of the terms are in catspeak or done in the sometimes incomprehensible spelling and grammar that cat lovers will find adorably entertaining. The suggested audience for the book is 17-year-old readers and above due to the occasional cussing and illustrative tomcat mating exploits. Basically, though, it's recommended for those who worship or have a high tolerance for cats, especially for the kind that feels that they are way too advanced and better than the hand that feeds them.