are books where cats die at the end deppressing to you?

I feel they are very deppressing. you sometimes sit there and think, aww, that poor kitty!

I've never read a cat book where the cat dies in the end. And I'm not looking for recommendations. :) "Dog books" are bad enough, lol.

I'm still mad (twenty years later) about the ending of Charlotte's Web. I certainly don't want to read any similar stories about cats.

I can think of one book and one short story in which a cat dies.

The book makes me cry every time I read it.

The story made me so angry, I got rid of the anthology it was in, even though I may have liked some of the other stories (I don't remember). The cat died because the owner was stupid. It was I don't know how many years ago that I read it, and it still upsets me when I think about what happened in the story.

Yeah it does kind of, but the killing and mutilation of cats is so overused that every time I see one introduced in fiction or in a movie, I know it will end up dead. Sometimes dogs, but not as assuredly as cats. I'm always surprised when one lives (like Birdie in Kathy Reich's Tempe Brennan series).

I'm afraid to admit that I hate for any animal to die. I always cry. (I don't do that for most of the human fictional deaths.) I hate those westerns that are so hard on the horses. I hate the horror stories with the mutilation and death of pets. I remember reading Beautiful Joe when I was a kid. I bawled almost all the way through!

I'm with you, xorscape! Human deaths in fiction don't move me nearly as much as animal deaths do!

Oh I'm so much more soft-hearted than that. If I'm watching a film where people are in peril - I love 'disaster' movies - that's okay; if their pet is left behind, though, I spend the whole movie worrying about the animal. Sure spoils it for everyone else: I keep asking 'What's happened to the dog?' (Independence Day), 'Is the cat all right?' (Alien / Aliens) etc. etc.

If I know there'll be 'scenes of peril' for an animal, I won't be able to watch or read. I cried solidly for three days after Dumbo and was inconsolable for weeks after reading Charlotte's Web. No one in my family is surprised I'm a vegetarian.

Hey, I'm glad you guys are into my topic. I agree with all of you. I really get upset when a cat dies in a book. If you want a really good adventure book with no cats dying, try the Santa Paws series!

The last book I read that a cat died in it was written by Gregory Maguire, called Lost. I was horrified by the owner of several cats in that book. I don't wan to spoil it by giving away any details, but lets just say I avoided something in my home that was partially to blame for the death of one of the cats in that book.

Kerian: oh, no. :( That one's on my 50 Book Challenge list!

#12 ArmyAngel:
Hmm. Consider replacing it with another by that author, or have you read his others? I personally think Lost is his worst book, though still all right. (Other than the poor kitties!) It's extremely different from his other books.

My son (he's in 1st Grade) brought home a short story from school the other day about a cat and a mouse. They were friends until the mouse ate the cat's food and then the cat got mad and ate the mouse. I was absolutely mortified!! My son went to school the next day and told his teacher, "My mom didn't like the story very much."

#14 Jenson_AKA_DL:
My goodness! What was the moral to the story? ... Exercise caution? Don't steal? :)

How awful!

They should read Martin's Mice instead (also about a cat and mice who are friends). It's a book my mom has in her first grade classroom.

The only other books of his I haven't read are Lost and Mirror, Mirror, and they're both on my list. Oh well, I'll just have to deal with it. If I don't like it I can always resell it.

8> Hera, I do the same thing in movies. Where's the cat. Where's the dog. Oh, no, they better not kill off the animal!

I'm not a vegetarian, but I would be if I had to kill my own food.

14 and 15> What a horrible story! Another moral..don't trust your friends?

I've been reminded of a cat dying in a book by a mention on another thread - Mog is a wonderful cat who features in a series of picture books by Judith Kerr which I really love. However, in the final book, Goodbye Mog Mog does die and it is terribly sad. I read it in a bookshop and had to stifle my sobs. But cats do die and this book handles it wonderfully. Wonderful for children and adults.

I'd like to mention a couple of children's books that handle death of a pet with dignity and insight. The older one is The Tenth Good Thing about Barney by Judith Viorst. This book gently examines several different beliefs about what happens when Barney the cat dies. I truely love this book.

Another is Leo the Magnificat by Ann M. Martin. This is the true story of a cat that lived in a church. A lovely picture book that follows Leo's adventures until the end of his life, and reveals the impact he had on so many lives.

Another picture book which deals with a cat's death is Fred - about the funeral of Famous Fred, a cat who just slept all the time as far as the children are concerned but that was because at night, he had a whole different life. They find out all about Fred at his funeral. I love Posy Simmond's illustrations as well as her story.

>15 Kerian:,16,18 I have no idea what the moral was supposed to be. In the end the cat felt bad about eating the mouse, so maybe it was to think of the consequences of your actions? I just couldn't believe it was something they used in a classroom. It was one of the little paper books the kids cut up and staple together themselves.

edited to add

I checked out Martin's Mice. I really think it would be a good story for my son because he is forever wanting to catch things outside and keep them in little jars. My mom lets him do it (he spent most of his pre-school years with her), but I always advocate letting his little "friends" go.

I HATE books where cats die or get hurt. In fact, I'm not a big fan of any animals dying. No one is surprised I'm a vegetarian either.

I will add that there are ways where the author can make it okay. I still don't like animals deaths, but if the author can make me believe that the death was necessary/right/at the right time I'm more okay with it.

I picked up Doreen Tovey's Cats in the Belfry. It's a comelling little memoir about a couple living in the countryside with their first Siamese cat, Sugieh, and then with the kittens in her first and only litter.

The reader is charmed, the stories are warm and hilarious, and we come to love the cats, especially Sugieh.

Then on page 89, "Sugieh died after an operation for spaying." And not much more than that. Where was the author's anger? Any instruction on how to grieve such a senseless loss?

But that episode is glossed over and we are launched into Part II, the narrative of the remaining cats from the litter. By page 107 I had lost interest. It was a narrative folly to resign Sugieh so easily to the hands of an incompetent doctor or to a tragic fate--I still don't know which it was.

I'm so surprised - I really thought I was the only one that happened to!! I go to pieces any time an animal, especially a cat, dies in a book, movie, tv show, you name it. I can handle human death much better than animal death. Intellectually, I understand that the issue has to be explored in print, but it will without fail ruin a book for me if an animal character dies.

Hah, Hera, I am the same exact way. Fortunately, my boyfriend, with whom I watch most of my movies (at least at home, where I feel free to gasp about things), feels the same way as I do about the fate of animals. We used to watch Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet and we had to stop because it was too nerve-wracking to wonder if one of the Meerkats was going to get hurt, killed, lost, etc.

When I went to see the new Charlotte's Web movie with my 8-yr-old nephew, his 6-yr-cousin, my 60-yr parents, and my boyfriend, we all cried!

'Goodbye Mog' is really sad. It's a book for children but it makes me well up even thinking about it!

I have recently read The Thirtheenth Tale. While most of the humans in the tale meet with horrible and twisted ends; the cat find happiness in the end.
Personally, the anti feline bias of the first Harry Potter turned me off the entire series.

I agree that I can deal with it if it is necessary to the plot. But I'll still cry bitterly about it. When a cherished pet cat in Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody series dies of old age, it is sad, but also dignified and expected.

I sometimes have great difficulty with children's literature and movies for this reason. It sometimes appears that the only reason a cherished pet is killed off is for the purpose of showing how the owner never appreciated it until it was too late. How do I explain that to my children, who have suffered the loss of 5 cats in the past 4 years? (2 to old age, 3 to incurable illness) It simply reopens wounds for them.

I appreciate any warnings listed here about children's/YA books with an animal death. Sometimes a parent needs help with screening.

In books, movies, etc. humans can take care of themseves. But hands off the ANIMALS!!

I can't take any kind of animals being tortured or killed in books or films. As many of you said before, humans can take care of themselves (mostly), but animals can't. I just finished reading American Psycho and while the parts where he tortures and kills humans are disturbing and disgusting, I had to skip over the parts where he does the same things to dogs and rats... Just too much to handle.

I will never forgive Jeanette Walls' parents - not for the things they did to their children in The Glass Castle: A Memoir, but for the things they did to the animals that adopted them.

Also, any viewers of the office out there? How sad was Angela's plight with her cat on the premiere? I know that we were supposed to laugh at her and her insane regimen of feline medicines but, having just lost a kitty of my own after a long illness that required massive amounts of medicine and taking a rectal temp every four hours, I felt so bad for her!

I agree kerian!

I cried my eyes out at the end of Peter Gether's The Cat Who'll Live Forever. I also happened to read it not too long after my father died.

There's a horrible cat scene at the beginning of Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory which has haunted me ever since I read it, really heartrending.

>6 xorscape: xorscape, Beautiful Joe was one of my favorite books, along with Black Beauty. My mom told me that I got sympathy pains when someone in a story was hurt...yet I would read those stories over and over. (It was years before I realized these books had a clear agenda--I was already convinced!)

I don't think I could finish a book with animal torture OR human torture in it, although I do read murder mysteries. But I avoid the ones with psychos, especially if the writer tries to present the sick person's point of view--yuck!

I like the James Herriot books, since the stories have both sad and happy in them. One of the recent ones had James trying to make friends with some almost-feral cats. Although it has sadness, there is much joy and satisfaction when he succeeds with the more difficult cat.

I don't like sad ending anyway with anything. I won't read Nicolaus Sparks for that reason. I don't mind sad in the middle as long as it comes out alright in the end

I'm glad to have found this thread because I'm getting a good list of books to avoid! I have a really difficult time if a cat dies in a book. Even if it's just from old age after a long, happy life I cry and cry. It's actually a relief to know I'm not the only one. :)

There was a historical young adult book I read that I otherwise loved.... except the author used the death of a cat for the main character's emotional breakthough, and it was so transparent and so constructed that it really ticked me off. The little girl was an orphan on the orphan train, she couldn't warm up to her new family, they weren't sure what to do, but when the cat freezes to death in a blizzard, they all cry and realize they need and love each other and blah blah blah.

Too bad because I really liked the book otherwise. I couldn't keep it after that.

38: I would add It's Like This, Cat to your list of books to avoid. There's a scene near the end that ruined the whole book for me.

Any book where an animal dies at any point in the story (spiders excepted!!!) upsets me

You guys better not read the end of Soseki's "I am a Cat."