The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett kept showing up in reviews and blurbs next to two of my all-time favorites, A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman and Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth. Obviously, there was zero chance I’d skip it.
The story begins with a cat. In fact, the first chapter is all about a sweet and slightly mysterious cat, so you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole book is mostly about her, like me. Then, at the end of the chapter, the narrator steps in with a warning. The cat is only the beginning, and what follows is a story about the awful things that happen to people.
“But this isn’t a story about cats, or even about dogs. It’s a story about horrible things that happen to people, and how on earth anyone can stomach raising children in a world where doom and disaster lurk around every corner. So, no, it’s not a story about a cat. It’s just a story that starts with a cat, and it goes from there.”
That warning certainly holds true once we meet our hero, if we can call him that. PJ Halliday is 63, out of work, drinks way too much, and won a million dollars in the lottery about ten years ago. Sadly, the money hasn’t fixed a thing. He’s still wrecked by the death of his older daughter, Kate, and his younger daughter, Sophie, can barely stand him. Meanwhile, his ex-wife still steps in to keep his life on track. He’s a bit of a man-baby. Still, his grief feels so real that I couldn’t help feeling for him.
Then, one day, PJ learns that his high school crush, the one who got away, has just been widowed. So he does what any impulsive, lovesick sixty-something would do and plans a road trip to Arizona to win her back. Right before he leaves, though, social services calls. His estranged brother has died, and his brother’s grandkids, Luna and Ollie, have just been orphaned. Guess who their new guardian is? PJ.
Even so, the trip goes ahead. Luna and Ollie climb in, Sophie gets roped in as the babysitter, and the last passenger is Pancakes, a former therapy cat who can tell when someone is about to die.
⚠️ Mild spoiler ahead
That gifted cat, Pancakes, is exactly what kept me nervous the whole way through. Pancakes always sticks close to whoever is nearing the end of life, and for most of the book, the cat follows PJ everywhere. He even more or less adopts it. So I spent page after page sure he was doomed, sitting on the edge of my seat and guessing which chapter would be his last. Turns out I was wrong, and that’s all I’ll say!
So, does it really have that Backman feel?
Mostly, yes. I’m a big Backman fan, and this book has less of his humor and gentle wisdom. To make up for it, you get more chaos and a lot more twists. If that mix sounds like fun, this could be your next great read.
My Favorite Bits
- “It’s why so many lottery winners commit suicide,” PJ always told the women at the bar. “You carry the weight of the world.”
- My dad always said a person needs three things to be happy: something to do; someone to love; and something to look forward to.
- Hell. It doesn’t make any sense. Why the actions over your short life-span would determine what happens to your soul for the rest of eternity. If you live for eighty years, that’s a tiny blip against the scale of eternity. It seems overkill to me, to have one short chance when God is supposed to be endlessly forgiving.
- I feel like I’m buried under a collapsed building, and I’ll never climb out from under the rubble.
- “Kids aren’t resilient. That’s something adults like to say to make themselves feel better. To pretend that kids don’t feel as deeply as adults do. But kids are everything that happens to them. They’re sponges. Everything bad, everything good. Every hurtful thing you say. Every loving one.” PJ was ashamed he’d said the wrong thing again. “Kids aren’t resilient,” he repeated. “Why do people say they are?” “Because people can learn resilience. They learn resilience by feeling safe, having time to bounce back and recover. So that’s what we can do for the kids.”
- The cat was amused at these two idiot humans, talking about how unfair death is, when it’s one of the few things everyone gets. Death is a magnificent invention, the cat knew, because it’s the impermanence of life that makes it beautiful.
Author: Annie Hartnett
Publication date: 29 April 2025
Number of pages: 384 pages
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