Kitten.jpg
Kitten.jpg

Kitten by Stacey Yu

from $11.60
Hardcover:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An enchanting debut novel about a young woman whose growing obsession with her boyfriend’s cat opens new possibilities for her life—but not without threatening to unravel it.

“Abound in wit and restraint, Kitten explores the funny yet unsettling complexities of modern love. . . . A fearless debut!”—Weike Wang, author of Chemistry

“Yu’s novel is both a kind of Gen Z parable of existential nihilism and a psychologically deft portrait of mother-daughter trauma. . . . This spiky debut refuses to be boxed in.”—Kirkus Reviews

LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION’S FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • A BUSTLE AND MARIE CLAIRE BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH • A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: Harper’s Bazaar, Our Culture, Debutiful, Electric Lit, The Millions

Katie is far from home, fresh out of college, and desperate to skirt the demands of adult life. It doesn’t help that she’s no longer speaking to her mother. Or that she owes her roommate and closest friend months of rent money. Luckily, her self-assured, generous boyfriend James seems happy to make decisions for them both. When James takes Katie on vacation to his family’s seaside house, he brings Silver, his childhood cat, and Katie discovers a sudden, strange, and giddy connection.

Silver doesn’t mind that Katie can’t seem to get a job, hold her own at dinner parties, or make amends with her mother. Silver, who gets to lie around all day, misbehave spectacularly, act cute, be gross, and still get fed, seems to have the life Katie increasingly longs for. Soon enough, they’re inseparable, and something inside Katie begins to crack open . . . or maybe just crack.

Because if Katie has learned anything from her mother, it’s that devotion comes at a price. As Katie's affection for Silver deepens, her other relationships begin to falter, until she’s forced to confront what she really desires from life—and what she might have to risk to get it.

Darkly playful, wryly observant, and unexpectedly heartfelt, this debut from an irresistible new voice in fiction is a timeless reckoning with the uncertainty of becoming a person in an age that is as disorienting and lonely as it is full of hope and promise.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An enchanting debut novel about a young woman whose growing obsession with her boyfriend’s cat opens new possibilities for her life—but not without threatening to unravel it.

“Abound in wit and restraint, Kitten explores the funny yet unsettling complexities of modern love. . . . A fearless debut!”—Weike Wang, author of Chemistry

“Yu’s novel is both a kind of Gen Z parable of existential nihilism and a psychologically deft portrait of mother-daughter trauma. . . . This spiky debut refuses to be boxed in.”—Kirkus Reviews

LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION’S FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • A BUSTLE AND MARIE CLAIRE BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH • A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: Harper’s Bazaar, Our Culture, Debutiful, Electric Lit, The Millions

Katie is far from home, fresh out of college, and desperate to skirt the demands of adult life. It doesn’t help that she’s no longer speaking to her mother. Or that she owes her roommate and closest friend months of rent money. Luckily, her self-assured, generous boyfriend James seems happy to make decisions for them both. When James takes Katie on vacation to his family’s seaside house, he brings Silver, his childhood cat, and Katie discovers a sudden, strange, and giddy connection.

Silver doesn’t mind that Katie can’t seem to get a job, hold her own at dinner parties, or make amends with her mother. Silver, who gets to lie around all day, misbehave spectacularly, act cute, be gross, and still get fed, seems to have the life Katie increasingly longs for. Soon enough, they’re inseparable, and something inside Katie begins to crack open . . . or maybe just crack.

Because if Katie has learned anything from her mother, it’s that devotion comes at a price. As Katie's affection for Silver deepens, her other relationships begin to falter, until she’s forced to confront what she really desires from life—and what she might have to risk to get it.

Darkly playful, wryly observant, and unexpectedly heartfelt, this debut from an irresistible new voice in fiction is a timeless reckoning with the uncertainty of becoming a person in an age that is as disorienting and lonely as it is full of hope and promise.

  • Publisher: Random House

    Title: Kitten: A Novel

    Author: Stacey Yu

    On Sale Date: August 4, 2026

    ISBN 13: 9798217155064

    Format: Hardcover

    Retail Price: $29.00

    BISAC: Fiction / Literary / Coming of Age

    Page Count: 304

    Dimensions: 5.73 in W | 1.09 in T | 8.54 in H

  • Stacey Yu is a Chinese American writer who grew up between Texas, Arkansas, and California before studying English at Columbia University. She now lives in London. Kitten is her debut novel, longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and named a most-anticipated book of the year by Harper’s Bazaar, Electric Lit, and The Millions.

  • Readers are calling Kitten funny, unsettling, and unexpectedly tender:

    • “Abound in wit and restraint, Kitten explores the funny yet unsettling complexities of modern love. . . . A fearless debut!”—Weike Wang, author of Chemistry

    • “Yu’s novel is both a kind of Gen Z parable of existential nihilism and a psychologically deft portrait of mother-daughter trauma. . . . This spiky debut refuses to be boxed in.”—Kirkus Reviews

    • “Beguiling, biting . . . the next book on every literary it girl’s shelf.”—Marie Claire

    • “A weird book (that's a compliment).”—Booklist

This book is for you if

  • You are figuring out what comes after graduation, when the plan runs out and no one hands you a new one.

  • You have loved an animal a little too fiercely, and let that love stand in for everything else you could not fix.

  • You want mother-daughter tension handled with real teeth, not a tidy resolution.

  • You loved the deadpan, quietly unraveling narrators of My Year of Rest and Relaxation or Fruit Fly.

  • You are hunting for the debut everyone will be talking about before it is cool to have read it.

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