Rating: 
Summary: From someone whose heart was touched...deeply.
Review: A beautifully written account of poignant, deep feelings..Anyone who has ever experienced the sorrow of loss will understand the depth and honesty of this book...the book has it all....humor, love, the reality of life. Roth's writing is fluid, easy to read and reaches down to your very soul.
Rating:
Summary: Roilling the heart, mind and soul when death strikes.
Review: A poignant visceral elucidation of the emotional volcano that touches the reader when a extremely talented writer spares no idiom portraying her senses when her aged cat, who only loved her and never failed her dies, at the same time her father who spun a web controlling her, and then deluded her, dies. Ms. Roth is able to take a painful experience and give the reader a breath-taking flight on the wings of her pen.
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Author for a reason....
Review: Geneen Roth is one of but a handful of writers who I will purchase a book she wrote sight unseen. She has a way with words, and thoughts and feelings that is beautiful and insightful and touching. This book did not disappoint. Having lost my mother a few years ago, and getting to the age where I realize life is fleeting, the message was very timely for me. Anyone who ever lost (and who has drawn a breath that hasn't?)something or someone they loved will surely relate to the well of feelings that are exposed here. I couldn't put it down....read it cover to cover and will go back with my highlighter pen for passages I want to revisit often. Reading Geneen is like being with a best friend. A very wise and loving best friend.
Rating:
Summary: A Book That Touched me so Deeply
Review: I have never read a book that hit me SO hard, and touched me so deeply. What most reviewers have already said, is how i feel, but i really need to express it again here.I have only read Geneen Roth in Prevention, but i cant wait to read more of her. I am overweight, a pet-lover (more dogs than cats), and have suffered the loss of both parents. The book is so beautifully written, and i felt like she was speaking FOR ME. I cried so much, that was the only problem! I cried early on in the book and it only got worse, to the end were i was sobbing til i couldnt breathe...but i really needed to let that emotion out, and for me that alone makes the book so special.If you have an eating disorder, love animals, have suffered loss, or just love a wonderful, moving story, buy this book. As another reviewer said, i will never get rid of it. I plan to re-read the ending, "the words of Blanche," many more times. We all need to be reminded about love, and that we're all worthy of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not just for cat people
Review: I picked up this book by accident and found it addressed two of the issues that are important to me - relationship with my father and emotional eating. And the author addresses both very well, with care, sensitivity, non judgement and very little self pity. How she comes to terms with her father - for who he is, just a human whom she loves and with a love that is beyond traditional roles and expectations, is truly remarkable and a great practical lesson for those of us struggling with those very human fathers - not abusive, not particularly bad or cruel - and yet selfish, small minded and all said and done, are fathers anyway.
I am not a definitely not a cat person but a 20lb furry lovable feline does sound rather tempting - not to mention the life he had with all those holistic treatments and counsellors and stuff. I would not mind that kind of a life myself!
Rating:
Summary: Gut wrenchingly wonderful.
Review: I read a review of this book in Oprah's magazine. Thought it sounded interesting and feel like I could really relate. Geneen Roth seemed to see straight into my heart. I loved her sense of humor and loved her cat. Reading her book was cathartic and cleansing for me. I have been grieving my cat's death and, interestingly, my father's death for a long time. I hope this book grabs your heart the way it did mine. I had it read in less than 24 hours (on a work day). I cried until my eyes were swollen but needed that cry tremendously. I would recommend this book to any cat lover who views his or her "fur baby" with adoration. Many of Geneen's statements about how her cat gave her love were so much like my cat that I felt like she was with me again. Okay, enough of this. Just buy the book and enjoy.Dee, Bob's mom (my female cat)
Rating:
Summary: Gut wrenchingly wonderful.
Review: I read a review of this book in Oprah's magazine. Thought it sounded interesting and feel like I could really relate. Geneen Roth seemed to see straight into my heart. I loved her sense of humor and loved her cat. Reading her book was cathartic and cleansing for me. I have been grieving my cat's death and, interestingly, my father's death for a long time. I hope this book grabs your heart the way it did mine. I had it read in less than 24 hours (on a work day). I cried until my eyes were swollen but needed that cry tremendously. I would recommend this book to any cat lover who views his or her "fur baby" with adoration. Many of Geneen's statements about how her cat gave her love were so much like my cat that I felt like she was with me again. Okay, enough of this. Just buy the book and enjoy. Dee, Bob's mom (my female cat)
Rating:
Summary: Geneen lays it all on the line . . .
Review: I wrote this review for my enewsletter (www.StressEating.com) I guess it was no accident that I read Geneen Roth's new
book on the way to visit my dad. "The Craggy Hole in My
Heart and the Cat Who Fixed It" captured my heart, as all
of her books have. This book, however, is not about emotional eating per se,
but rather about the emotions and the stories that can
drive the eating. No matter what role food plays in our lives, it is inextricably
linked to our desire for love and acceptance . . . and you
usually don't need 6 degrees of separation to get there. Geneen addresses these issues better than anyone I
know. She has lived her life untangling them and teaching
the rest of us how to do the same. For example, in regard to her fear of her beloved cat's
death: "It occurs to me that I can spend the rest of my life (and
his) in low-level panic, or I can take a leap into the
suffering, and make friends with fear, pain and sorrow. It is the same juncture I reached with food, when I realized I
could keep being frightened of going off the diet and eating
so much I'd end up weighing a thousand pounds, or I could
stop dieting and discover if there was a bottom to my
hunger." Again and again Geneen lays it all on the line - this book
is fresh, vulnerable, edgy and funny. In it, she confronts
the honest, raw truth of her life, of her relationships . . . and
takes us all along for the ride. And what a ride it is! Geneen tells us the story of how she sold her soul for the
love of her father, how she learned to love (with 20-lb. cat,
Mr. Blanche in tow), to BE loved and to confront the truth. In coaching, I sometimes ask my clients, "What's the lie?"
meaning - where are you lying to yourself? With integrity
and courage, my clients learn to face the truth by shedding
the lies. In shedding her lies, Geneen also sheds the skins of her
childhood. Psychological researchers now believe that we
do NOT have to be prisoners of our childhoods. As human beings, we are amazingly capable of rewriting
our childhood stories. Geneen reminds us that "unless we
question them head-on, we believe them for the rest of our
lives." So I appreciate THIS visit with my dad even more,
savoring family memories, and feeling just a bit more
capable of facing the truth and the inevitable. Through Geneen's example, we learn that we can rewrite
our stories to better serve us as adults, so that we can
flourish in our relationships and in life. Through her openness, we learn how to handle even death
without emotional eating. It makes us feel as if anything we
think or feel is ok . . . someone else has felt the same . . .
or worse. Now there is a lesson learned. Here's to facing your truth,
Carol
Rating:
Summary: A Book of Extraordinary Appeal
Review: I wrote this review for my enewsletter (www.StressEating.com) I guess it was no accident that I read Geneen Roth's new
book on the way to visit my dad. "The Craggy Hole in My
Heart and the Cat Who Fixed It" captured my heart, as all
of her books have. This book, however, is not about emotional eating per se,
but rather about the emotions and the stories that can
drive the eating. No matter what role food plays in our lives, it is inextricably
linked to our desire for love and acceptance . . . and you
usually don't need 6 degrees of separation to get there. Geneen addresses these issues better than anyone I
know. She has lived her life untangling them and teaching
the rest of us how to do the same. For example, in regard to her fear of her beloved cat's
death: "It occurs to me that I can spend the rest of my life (and
his) in low-level panic, or I can take a leap into the
suffering, and make friends with fear, pain and sorrow. It is the same juncture I reached with food, when I realized I
could keep being frightened of going off the diet and eating
so much I'd end up weighing a thousand pounds, or I could
stop dieting and discover if there was a bottom to my
hunger." Again and again Geneen lays it all on the line - this book
is fresh, vulnerable, edgy and funny. In it, she confronts
the honest, raw truth of her life, of her relationships . . . and
takes us all along for the ride. And what a ride it is! Geneen tells us the story of how she sold her soul for the
love of her father, how she learned to love (with 20-lb. cat,
Mr. Blanche in tow), to BE loved and to confront the truth. In coaching, I sometimes ask my clients, "What's the lie?"
meaning - where are you lying to yourself? With integrity
and courage, my clients learn to face the truth by shedding
the lies. In shedding her lies, Geneen also sheds the skins of her
childhood. Psychological researchers now believe that we
do NOT have to be prisoners of our childhoods. As human beings, we are amazingly capable of rewriting
our childhood stories. Geneen reminds us that "unless we
question them head-on, we believe them for the rest of our
lives." So I appreciate THIS visit with my dad even more,
savoring family memories, and feeling just a bit more
capable of facing the truth and the inevitable. Through Geneen's example, we learn that we can rewrite
our stories to better serve us as adults, so that we can
flourish in our relationships and in life. Through her openness, we learn how to handle even death
without emotional eating. It makes us feel as if anything we
think or feel is ok . . . someone else has felt the same . . .
or worse. Now there is a lesson learned. Here's to facing your truth,
Carol
Rating:
Summary: Fill the hole in your bookshelf -- right here!
Review: Okay, I admit it: I'll pick up almost any book with the word "cat" or "dog" on the cover. I'd never read Geneen Roth before, and I didn't expect to like this book very much. But this book won me over the way Blanche won over the author: slowly and subtly. Roth was in a position to be a great cat-owner. She lived in a city with access to alternative veterinary medicine as well as cat therapists, groomers and more. So when Blanche entered her life, Roth's love spilled over. And it couldn't happen to a nicer cat. I must admit I turned the pages a little faster when Roth panicked about losing her cat. Blanche is tougher than he looks, I wanted to say. Many people will find parallels with Roth's family in their own lives -- or their friends' lives. Roth tells the story movingly, but matter-of-factly, without self-pity. But Blanche remains the hero of this book and Roth's life. Perhaps the most telling passage comes when she writes that, "Blanche is like food once was -- he doesn't talk back, he doesn't hit, he doesn't go away...also, and I think this is important, he doesn't have any calories." Blanche really does fill a hole in the author's heart but, unlike food, Blanche helps Roth grow and accept new relationships. Roth acquires not only a husband but also a dog. And she takes on a spiritual teacher, distinguished from a therapist in one of the best sections of the book. A therapist, says Roth, helps you heal the damage from what was done to you. A teacher helps you heal from the way you reacted to what was done to you. The perfect gift for a sensitive cat lover. Then again, what true cat person isn't sensitive?
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