The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
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The Three Lives of Cate Kay was a quick and enjoyable read. I particularly enjoyed the quality and tone of Fagan’s writing. It was easy and fast-paced.
While I wasn’t crazy about the arrangement of how the story was told, I still really appreciated the lovely character work.
I was drawn to this because of the synopsis. The idea of following a mysterious author, Cate Kay, and learning all about her life and success appealed to me. I would say Fagan def delivered in that regard.
Kay wasn’t quite the kind of mysterious I tend to vibe with though. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. This just didn’t pack the punch for me that I was hoping it would. It was nice, but also felt a little safe.
There’s a lot of different characters introduced over the course of this tale, and we get all of their various perspectives and the timeline varies as well. I’ll admit to at times needing to remind myself, who I was reading from at any particular time, and where they were in time.
I think as an audiobook, if it is done with full cast, like Daisy Jones, this could flow well and be quite impactful. Unfortunately, reading it with my eyeballs, it sometimes felt a little disjointed.
With all this being said though, I did really love Annie and Amanda’s relationship. I think that aspect of this book captivated me the most and kept me moving forward at a steady clip.
Further, I think for Literary Fiction fans this is going to be a big hit. It did remind me in certain structural ways of Daisy Jones and the Six, and I’m anticipating many, many comparisons to Evelyn Hugo. I’ve never read EH, so can’t comment in that regard personally.
I would recommend this though to anyone who enjoyed either of those books. I feel like for the right Reader at the right time, this book could be sheer perfection.
Thank you to the publisher, Atria Books, for providing me a copy to read and review. Even though this is a little outside my comfort zone, I’m really glad I picked it up. It was a nice change of pace.