I also have to say that I didn’t like the illustrations that went with the story. However, while reading it, it certainly bogged me down.

Ok, I just read what I wrote, and quite possibly that is the point of the story. However, at that point he was sort of just becoming the monster they were treating him as. I couldn’t help but think of that obese cat that was on the news last year. What is up with this family hating on their adorable son? Why do they lock him away in a room? What is up with that? Of course this gets addressed later when Gregor grows to a disturbingly large size and can barely move around. While Cook does a good job showing the internal workings of a cat brain to go with their adorably quirky behavior, the actions of the family are less understandable. A lot of the depression, ennui, and conflict in the original story comes from Gregor being an insect. The main problem with reworking “The Metamorphosis” to be a cat is that, well, cats are adorable and playful and perfectly normal household cats whereas a giant insect is not. Anyway, when this came up as an EarlyReviewer I obviously needed to have a copy. In spite of its (epically awesome win) name, this actually also incorporates another Kafka story “The Trial,” which I have not read. (I was the only one in my AP English class who thought this. Although, I will always insist that Gregor woke up as a grasshopper, not a cockroach. However, “The Metamorphosis” is one of my faaaavorite short stories. This is the first Quirk Classic that I’ve read, mainly because all the others were based on classics I don’t like to start with (Jane Austen and Anna Karenina). Plus, his family clearly are not cat people. Gregor Samsa goes to bed and wakes up as an adorable snuggly kitten! He has trouble making up his mind about anything, though, and is easily distracted by things like dust and canned fish.

The Meowmorphosis by Coleridge Cook