The Unconventional Life of Haee

Haee and the Other Middlings, #2

Children - Animals
122 Pages
Reviewed on 12/30/2012
Buy on Amazon

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.

Author Biography

R.S. Vern is the creator of the book trilogy: Haee and the other middlings.

She is often described as an oddly conflicted soul. Constantly torn between the challenges of saving the world and the reality of making a living, she calls herself a middling – urbanised, bored, and most of the time confused.

R.S. Vern enjoys coffee exchanges on concepts of being an acceptable human being. Instead of writing as herself, she feels that it is less brutal to see life through the eyes of a cat.

She currently resides on a very small, urban and competitive island populated by middlings. Haee is a real cat living in her home. At the time this book was written, Haee was 8 years old.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Gayani Hathurusingha for Readers' Favorite

What would it feel like to see the world through the green eyes of a cat? No need to guess, just read "The Unconventional Life of Haee" by R.S. Vern. The story made me keep turning the pages till the very end, as the writing generates beauty through its simplicity. The protagonist is Haee, a cat who prefers the eventful life in the back alley to the monotony of the role of a domestic 'pet'. Rejecting the safety of a routine life, Haee takes the hard path and encounters several other cat-characters who display a wide and a very interesting diversity of attitudes and behavior. The story is all about how Haee reconciles with this society.

The plot bears features of an allegory, as it contains several levels of understanding. "The Unconventional Life of Haee" can be read and enjoyed as a simple tale woven around an alley-cat, although it has a deeper layer of ideas inter-twined in it. The themes are not made lessons. They are presented just as parts of the world it describes. The cats who appear through the pages of the book epitomize certain stereo-typical characters in human society. They have deep-rooted norms or conventions. Some differ from the majority and live silently. Then there are trouble-makers, like Haee, who change, and who wish to change their immediate world as well. What happens when unconventional attitudes meet standard conventions? R.S. Vern tries to analyse it through her fiction. It being the second book of a series, the writing denotes wit, subtle humor and even cynicism towards the absurdities found in the human world. The story is strewn with illustrations which contribute considerably to the artistic value of this piece of writing. Read "The Unconventional Life of Haee" and enter into the bizarre world of Green Alley, where cats are vegetarians.