The Nine Lives Of Romeo Crumb: Life One

The Nine Lives of Romeo Crumb #1

by L. Rifkin

L. Rifkin proves once and for all that every cat is born to live and die nine times. In fact, the familiar myth is turned completely on its head in this remarkable book. The secret world of cats is revealed in this epic tale of feline civil war, where we meet young Romeo, a stray who finds himself battered between two very different worlds. It's the domestic cats, the Sticks, vs. the street cats, the Alleys. As battle lines are drawn, warriors train for combat and a hero emerges to inspire a nation. Fraught with danger from page one, Romeo loses his family at the claws of Fidel and his gang of vicious Alleys. After being rescued from the Pound, Romeo finds a new home with "his person", 9-year-old Dennis Crumb. As long as Romeo stays inside with his adopted family he's safe, however, when he ventures out he finds danger lurking around every corner. Fortunately, Queen Elizabeth, a wise cat who lives nearby, befriends Romeo. She takes him to the Factory, a burned-out building where other Sticks secretly learn how to defend themselves from the Alleys and the indifferent humans of the city.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Adventure

311 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Bethany · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a fan of the animal fantasy novels- Jaques, Hunter, other authors of the sort; this book caught my eye. While you read my short little review here mind you that the time I was reading this I was comparing it to the Warriors series.
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The book was set in quite the depressing little town, making even the brightest of the books characters feel trapped. The story revolves around a young cat named Romeo, who is born an alley cat, but saved from death by becoming a "stick"- the cat's word for a kittypet, or a domesticated cat. The book follows the young tomcat in his school adventures, and his adventures through the cat society, which is terrorized by an evil tyrant Fidel. Unlike just leaders have 9 lives, all cats from birth have 9 lives. Romeo learns through school and the harsh nature of the world how to survive, and gains and loses many friends throughout the novel.
The story was engaging, but the writing was a bit hard to read. The language used in the book was on a bit of a higher level than the slow writing itself. The voilence wouldn't be too good for anyone in a lower reading/age level, but the action is paced for a bit of a lower audience, in my opinion. I didn't dislike it, and cute young Romeo will always pop into my mind when I gaze through dark subway alleys; but it wasn't the best book I've read.

[Silver Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book messed with my emotions so much. I... want to burn it and toss it out a window. I had to put it down a few times just so I wouldn't freakin cry 😭. It reminds me of GOT, every time I liked a character they died -_-.

I give this book a 3.75 rating.

[Alysha DeShaé · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNFed

[Zane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tend to change ratings of books a lot. I changed my rating of this book a super lot. Mainly because when I first read it it had just come out and I was a lot younger, so the bar I set myself was pretty low. Then I was reminded of this book recently and remembered that I had never gotten to read the whole series. So I set myself to that task and reread this first book in order to refresh my memory. It was okay, but so much more... simplistic than I remembered, and the spelling and characterization, well, let's just say that leaves something to be desired. I like that this book is pretty dark for middle-grade fiction, but I also think that I, or just another author in general, could have carried out the ideas better and made it sound less.... well, at the very least made it sound like someone was actually invested in the story.

[Terry]

This is a well-crafted, fast-paced adventure. This isn't a book I would have picked out, because I don't like animal fantasy, but I enjoyed it. It is easy to pick sides, yet it is also easy to understand the other cat's point of view. The author has thought this through very carefully, from character development to setting a scene (i.e., understanding how the pound works, creating a cat school).

There is one thing that made it a little tougher to read. .

[Theo · Rating 2 out of 5]

(this has a part in it about book 2) I liked this book because it was about talking cats, and humans who couldn't understand them. I didn't like Books 1&2 because it has the typical storyline for a hero book. Hero comes to town, makes friends, friends die, hero avenges them, blah, blah, blah. I think it would be better if he is a bad guy, the decides that he should change sides. So basically the opposite of Anikin Skywalker from Star Wars. I think that that would make the story a heck of a lot more interesting.

[Jennifer Priester · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed the book and plan to read more of the series, oftentimes I felt the cats acted too much like humans and not enough like the cats they are. There were several things that I just couldn't picture cats doing such as smoking. I can't really see how a cat can smoke a pipe without having hands. I prefer my animal fiction to remain more realistic to the animals natural behaviors. It's not completely unrealistic though, but for it to feel more real I would have needed a bit more details regarding how the cats can do or learned to do certain things.

[Jennifer Priester · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed the book and plan to read more of the series, oftentimes I felt the cats acted too much like humans and not enough like the cats they are. There were several things that I just couldn't picture cats doing such as smoking. I can't really see how a cat can smoke a pipe without having hands. I prefer my animal fiction to remain more realistic to the animals natural behaviors. It's not completely unrealistic though, but for it to feel more real I would have needed a bit more details regarding how the cats can do or learned to do certain things.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book that I read was The Nine lives of Romeo Crumb: Life One, The person who wrote this book is L. Rifkin. The genre of this book is fantasy, This book takes place on the streets and in a old broken down theater, The main characters of this story are, Romeo Crumb, and Queen Elizabeth. This book was about a little cat on his first life learned the ways of fighting is way through his own life and helping others along the way. I rated this book 4 stars out of five because It was very interesting and a lot of times suspenseful which made me want to keep reading it.

[Courtneyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute story for children who love cats. I didn't find it captivating enough to run out and buy the next book in the series, but if I happen to see any at a library book sale I would probably purchase them.

[Mari]

The author is a former colleague of mine and originally I read the book to support her but I found I loved the stories and especially for use in my classroom. The kids enjoyed them and started their own collections of her books.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good and I enjoyed every bit of it.I think every animal lover (especially cat lovers) should read this book.I love how Romeo dies at a young age,which makes the story even more sad,and I live sad books and how queen Elizabeth dies and not many people knew her secrets

[Koby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very entertaining read. I enjoyed the book.

[Kim Gontarz]

A kitten born to alley parents moves to being a stick as he lives out his life.