We'll Prescribe You Another Cat (We'll Prescribe You a Cat, #2) by Syou Ishida, E. Madison Shimoda Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: literary fiction, magical realism, sad fluff, translated fiction, world literature
Series: We'll Prescribe You a Cat #2
Pages: 304
Published by Berkley on September 2, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
The Kokoro Clinic for the Soul reopens in this delightful follow-up to the award-winning, bestselling Japanese novel We’ll Prescribe You a Cat.
It’s time to revisit the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul.
Though it’s a mysteriously located clinic with an uncertain address, it can always be found by those who need it. And the clinic has proven time after time that a prescribed cat has the power to heal the emotional wounds of its patients. This charming sequel introduces a new lovable cast of healing cats, from Kotetsu, a four-month-old Bengal who unleashes his boundless energy by demolishing bed linens and curtains, to tenacious and curious Shasha, who doesn’t let her small size stop her from anything, and the most lovable yet lazy cat Ms. Michiko, who is as soft and comforting as mochi.
As characters from one chapter appear as side characters in the next, we follow a young woman who cannot help pushing away the man who loves her, a recently widowed grandfather whose grandson refuses to leave his room, the family of a young woman who struggle to understand each other, and an anxious man who works at a cat shelter seeking to show how the most difficult cats can be the most rewarding. This moving, magical novel of interconnected tales proves the strength in the unfathomable bond between cats and people.
My Review:
I picked this up for three reasons. First and foremost, the first book in the series, the titular We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, was adorable. Second, the cover picture for this second book is just really, really cute, and two cats really are better than one. Third, I was looking for a bit of a comfort read as our trip ended – and I just missed our own cats something terrible in spite of spending the first part of the trip sharing a very insistent feline and visiting a cat cafe at the end because we weren’t getting back to our own cats quickly enough.
As is often the case with this particular type of comfort read, sad fluff book, it’s a collection of mini-stories wrapped around a place, in this case the slightly magical but borderline real Kokoro Clinic for the Soul. The stories aren’t just loosely connected by the place, but also the characters in the stories are loosely connected to each other.
One young woman uses her prescribed cat to put off the “we need to talk” conversation with the boyfriend that she’s sure is about to break up with her. Her best friend is prescribed a cat to help her deal with her resentment of her mother’s extreme favoritism towards her brother. And her brother, well, her brother Tomoya’s work at a cat rescue organization turns out to lie at the heart of the Kokoro Clinic – even if Tomoya himself isn’t aware of it – at all.
Although his cat certainly is.
Escape Rating C: Pardon me for mixing animal metaphors, but after finishing this second book in the series I’m inclined to say that We’ll Prescribe You a Cat might have been better as a ‘one-trick pony’.
Alternatively, it could be that as a cat lover myself, I’m not sure I’m willing to watch Nikké the cat – or his person Tomoya – suffer through Nikké’s very long decline just so that we can watch more people get matched up with more cats.
Either way, the idea behind this series seems like a story that was good once but loses something with repeated applications – even if some of the characters within its pages definitely NEED to be prescribed more than one cat.
As much as I enjoyed the first book, I think that this second one fell flat for me because we already know the twist at the end. The big reveal at the end of We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, as much as it was foreshadowed in the story, was still a sad but delightful surprise. That the magical realism of the setup allowed for Nikké and Chitose to pay their survival forward to others of their kind was both charming and touching. And it still kind of is, but it’s also played for laughs this time around more than was comfortable for this reader, particularly considering the price that Nikké and his person are both paying for it.
And at the same time, the idea that a cat is being mischievous even as he’s winding up his ninth life along with a whole lot of people – and cats – is very, well, cat. But this one broke my heart more than a bit, and not in a good way.
There are at least two more books in the series that have yet to be translated into English. I’m not sure whether I’ll pick them up or not. I love the idea of being prescribed a cat, but the way the overall story seems to be working out gives me the weepies in the worst way.
Your reading mileage on this one may vary, and probably varies significantly depending on how recently you might have lost a beloved companion animal. (I still miss Lucifer a LOT)
