Homers Odyssey- A review

One boring Saturday afternoon I was scanning the shelves of a bookstore eager to find a good read. Something new that I would not normally have read- perhaps a true story. Shelf after shelf provided no literature that I deemed worth reading. Then as I wandered the store a paperback caught my eye. Curiously I picked it up and read the back cover. I could see that it would be a good book to read.

The book is Homers Odyssey by Gwen Cooper. It is a true story about her life both before and after adopting an eyeless and therefore blind kitten. Cooper writes about how she came to be this tiny, vulnerable kittys foster mother and how he changed her life.

With two cats already Cooper says she would never have dreamed of getting another cat. That changed when she met Homer. Cooper states in her novel that she looked at him and told her vet “Oh for goodness sake. Wrap him up. I'm taking him” and thus began her life as a seeing eye human for this tiny ball of fluff. Or so she thought....

Homer, named after the blind greek poet in The Odyssey, was born a stray and developed an infection in his eyes that would have robbed him of his life had they not been removed. In the novel Cooper states that the people who found Homer wanted him to be put to sleep straight away, but the vet they took him to refused and operated to give him as much of a chance as possible.

This book is a fantastic read. It is not about how pathetic a blind cats life may be, in fact Homers life was quite the opposite. This fearless feline lived his life to the full, chasing an intruder away which saved Coopers life, able to catch a fly in mid air and even surviving for days trapped in an apartment building after the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

How could a blind cat possibly know where that fly was? Or even manage to catch it? How did he know there was an intruder in his “mums” home? And how did he and his “sisters” survive that tragic attack that day and the days that followed till Cooper was able to get to them? You'll just have to read the book for yourself!

Homer has since passed away however Cooper has written a sequel to Homers Odyssey, which is just as good as the first story, albeit a lot shorter. Cooper has also written a fiction novel called Love Saves the Day which is also a great read and Diary of a Southbeach Party Girl. Cooper donates 10% of her sales to shelters in the U.S where she lives who dedicate their lives to saving, caring for and protecting neglected, abandoned and mistreated animals.

Homers Odyssey has humour, suspense, thrills and chills, romance and utter devotion. It is available online for a very reasonable price and also as an ebook so just about anyone can access it. Anyone who loves cats will love this novel. From start to end I was captivated by this tale of overcoming major adversity and and from the moment I picked it up I struggled to put it down.

Homers Odyssey is available in paperback in selected book shops and online, and also on ebooks.