This book is the official record of a complaint, and you are the party being complained about. Your cat has retained counsel, engaged a court reporter, and filed a formal grievance accusing you of a long list of human performance failures, including the late breakfast, the closed door, the cheap litter, the unacceptable food, and the unforgivable habit of staring at a small glowing rectangle instead of the 1 creature who has already chosen you. You may have believed you were living with a cat, but you were actually living in a jurisdiction, and the jurisdiction has rules, and the rules were written by the cat, and the penalties are applied at 4 a.m.

This laugh-out-loud book is organized the way any respectable legal case is organized, with an introduction, a series of charges, and a final verdict, and you are advised not to skip ahead to the verdict. Each chapter is a separate charge supported by evidence, testimony, and a ruling that is legally binding inside your own home. You will meet the Cat, the complainant, who prefers to be addressed formally, along with the cat's lawyer, the vet, the houseplant, and the person who feeds the cat when you travel. You will read the case of the late breakfast, the closed door conspiracy, the litter box audit, the unacceptable food offense, the nap interruption ordinance, the lap and keyboard conflict, the touch consent act, the terror of the machines, the visitor problem, the abandonment during travel, the vet conspiracy, the territorial audit, the gift economy, and the night shift.

Every cat is the same cat when it comes to grievances, which is why the evidence in this dossier will feel alarmingly familiar to anyone who has ever owned one. The cat is an apex predator who sleeps 16 hours a day and still considers itself qualified to judge every decision you make. If you have been woken at dawn because dawn is when predators hunt, you are guilty as charged, and this hilarious book will make you grateful for the sentence.