Kitten

by Olive Nuttall

Rosemary, a trans girl, has many conflicting qualities. She’s super smart but flawed, polyamorous but timid, promiscuous but inexperienced. She’s surprising, and surprised by herself.

A call that Rosemary’s grandmother is dying puts her on the bus from Te Whanganui-a-Tara back to Kirikiriroa. There, with her mother, half-sister, and other family and friends, she remembers the damage of her past. And then Thorn – Rosemary’s long-distance daddy – shows up.

Genres: LGBT, Queer, Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Transgender

176 pages, Paperback

Published February 8, 2024

About the author

Olive Nuttall completed an MA in Creative Writing in 2022 at Te Pūtahu Tuhi Auaha o te Ao, the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, where she won the 2022 Adam Foundation Prize.

from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University's website

Reviews

[Will Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blew me away. Others have written about Olive's writing being "lulling" and I certainly found it super comforting to read. I love how she handles all these complex feelings, it feels so soft & radically non-judgmental, while at the same time unafraid to critically face things that are hard - the latter aspect making the former all the more impressive. People are gonna be calling this book "confronting" a lot and I'm real glad that it's gonna shake a lotta people out of their comfort zones - it's very needed, especially in a "no kink at pride" kind of world. This is an incredible addition to the trans cannon that I think sits proudly alongside the likes of Nevada and Stone Bitch Blues - a trans book for the top shelf. Well done Olive!

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning- a beautiful but confronting story.

[Alison N · Rating 3 out of 5]

the strangest thing about this book is that i'm not sure whether it's supposed to be a love story or not. quite frankly, it's much more focused on rosemary's trauma and pain than any relationships or sex. and to be clear, i think this is a positive, because this is not a love story in any sense. rosemary uses sex as a coping mechanism and often seeks out actively unhealthy or fetishistic relationships.

kitten is almost crushingly honest and upfront with you, and for all the times it made me cringe, there were more times than i'd like to admit where i cringed because i recognised myself. it bounces back and forth between jarringly unrelated things very frequently in a way that i think works, at least most of the time?

for all that i could complain about this book or call it cringe, i mainly liked it. but for the life of me, i don't get why i heard so many people describe it as a love story

[Rosie Sloan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something about books set in NZ that feels like a warm hug. The description of the steak and cheese pie made me miss home. Anyway, not the point of the book. Great lil novel that somehow managed to cover off deep af topics without being trauma porn, which is a tricky task! This could sit in the sad girl novel category, really similar themes of being early 20s and not having a grip over anything. However, with the main character being a trans queer woman, touching on themes from childhood trauma, addiction, kinks, family drama, grief, body dysmorphia/euphoria - it’s much more than your run of the mill sad girl novel. You’ll inhale it in a sitting, two at most. Ps let me know if the final chapter was a TOTAL mindfuck for you too!

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Equally so delightful and so heart-shattering and I feel like this book’s sad moments will stay with me for a long time. We love a healthy and healing queer relationship, especially one that I feel is underrepresented in Aotearoa literature! I would read many other books narrated by Rosemary, she’s a very fun protagonist, and her tangents are some of the best tangents I’ve read in a while.

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before reading 'Kitten' by Olive Nuttall I saw it recommended as a cute, sweet, funny trans love story with some family drama included. After reading it, I felt kind of confused. There were definitely some cute, sweet, funny parts but it was also pretty dark, and sad and maybe should come with more trigger warnings? It's definitely a me issue - I can be so oblivious to things that come across as really obvious to other people.

Olive has such an incredible style of writing that lulls you into this sense of safety about a cute girl just trying to get through a sad time with her family and then you get that uneasy feeling of 'uh oh I think I know where this is going' and you will get shown a slice of a memory that takes your breath away and almost cuts you to your knees. I felt the insistence of trying to not place fault and to explain away the reasons that bad things happened really confronting. But I also can be very black and white in my thinking sometimes about what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'.

Would I recommend 'Kitten' to others? Definitely - but with caveats that they should perhaps know a little more about what they're getting into. Its a very well written, easy to read novel that has excellent representation in it however the main trigger warnings are: childhood sexual assault & BDSM.

[Jenna]

This book wasn't written for me so I won't give it stars.

Trigger warnings for this book so please look them up before you read - this is a confronting book.

While I understand this book is seen as a love story by some, I couldn't reconcile the abuse storyline with Rosemary's (obvious?) using sex as an unhealthy coping mechanism with her then falling in love at the end. This book felt very early 20s to me and maybe I am just too old a bitch to vibe with it.

This book was beautiful is parts, very horny in others,, heartbreaking, and overall convincing. It was a wildly new viewpoint for me which is good but not my cup of tea really (I'm in general not a smutty reader).

[Jaymee Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, first thoughts lots of kink and I love that for Rosemary. I finished this in one day, it’s a short read. Some parts are confrontational and dark but the other parts incredibly wholesome and part of healing trauma.

Reading the parts when Rosemary is lost in thought, on a tangent, or riding the waves of anxiety felt so real, just like being in my own head sometimes, the author did a beautiful job of putting this feeling onto paper.

The blurb of this book definitely doesn’t give much away, there could be some triggers in this story as it touches on themes of death and family grief, childhood trauma, childhood sexual assault and BDSM (which might test your own comfort zone, its honestly out of mine but I also appreciate that it’s being shared). The blurb says “Rosemary has the wisdom that nothing in life is straightforwardly good or bad” and i think that is something to be reminded of when reading this story.

I love that this book is written a local author (Olive Nuttall) based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and that Rosemary, the main character, visits her old home town. I’m taken back to the small town I grew up in, Olive describes it so well in the smaller observations.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok so Olive Nuttall writes for trans girls and that’s not me. This book is very sex-positive and has amazing queer representation. It also has a very upsetting storyline of the family patterns of sexual abuse of children - to be honest I would not have read the book if I knew that.

[Olivia Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay so I feel like the blurb for this book gets the tone completely wrong? Back to write a review when I can gather my thoughts.

[Simone B]

Stunning writing, but made me feel pretty uncomfortable, like maybe I'm too old and straight for this?!

[Soph]

Unsure exactly what I think! I love some good Aotearoa fiction, and this writer is clearly skilled. My rating is somewhere around a 3.5-4 - I found the family dynamics in this really interesting, and of course the authentic representation of how messy our experiences of sexuality and trans identity can be. I feel unsure about what I think of the ending. The book is pitched as a ‘wholesome and consoling’ story - I suppose it is, and maybe it’s just my own lack of knowledge around BDSM dynamics that made the ending feel extremely fucked and not all that happy or consoling to me. I think I sort of just wanted Rosemary to find some sense of happiness or confidence in herself through other relationships or through independence, rather than through this particular dynamic with Thorn. Interesting! Will have to sit with my thoughts on it.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book in one sitting. Sad, funny, tragic and hopeful. A not-so-traditional love story.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I remembered the dark varnish on the frame of my parents' bed. It must have been something cheap, pine with a veneer or a really dark polyurethane coating or something."

This is such a kiwi line, especially the first sentence. Something in the structure or the way we care about furniture like this.
It also clearly presages one of the core topics of this book - the sexual abuse of children. BTW, content warnings for that, incest, use/abuse of alcohol & drugs, transphobia, discussion and depiction of BDSM sex, suicide and suicidal thoughts. This is not a light read because of these things, though at the same time it's a very typical piece of New Zealand fiction for their inclusion. Yeah, small-town Aotearoa is conservative and queerphobic; yeah, as a country we have problems with the use and abuse of alcohol and drugs (especially evident in, though not restricted to, those same small towns); yeah, our youth and queer suicide rates are terrible.

The thing that makes this book stand out amongst all those well-trodden paths is the queer and kinky perspective. While Rosemary's kinks are not my kinks and that's okay, I got sympathetically horny anyway because there is a visceral relatability to her desire that makes me want to copy out those scenes as evidence that trans women are women. Men just don't write like that, and while I don't believe in divine femininity, Rosemary's journey of discovering what she likes and getting it comes close. (Double entrede not intended.) Yeah, a little cliche to work through trauma through kink and BDSM, but it's also a true thing - even if your regular therapist isn't going to recommend it as a treatment plan.

I do wish the chapters had proper titles to help set the mood of each one. That's mostly just me reading a complaint someone else made about the lack of proper chapter titles in modern fiction while I was reading this book and noticing the chapters in this book had a marked internal cohesion and overall structural form that would have been enhanced with non-numeric single-word titles.
Also I'd completed My Sister, the Serial Killer, which does this to amazing effect.

3.5 stars, rounded up because I do believe those erotic scenes are excellent evidence that trans women are women.

[lucy black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitten is an authentic and unsettling debut novel about being young, trans and facing childhood trauma. The main character is the self-aware and self-conscious Rosemary. In her early 20’s, Rosemary likes manga, BDSM, butter chicken and good music. Rosemary doesn’t like falling off the wagon, navigating the death of her Nanna and coming to terms with the sexual abuse in her past.

Rosemary travels to her hometown and is comforted and confronted by the familiarity of her childhood home, her many aunts and the stoners of her youth. She quickly spirals into old patterns of self-destructive behaviour while she tries to address the harms done to her and her family.

Rosemary is your boomer uncle’s worst nightmare: she uses Māori place names and correct pronouns. She is into calling people out and analysing celebrity behaviour, she practices correct kink community etiquette. Rosemary’s confrontational and coquettish mix will not be every reader’s cup of tea (she is more of a matcha smoothie girl) but as the novel goes on her resilience and nuance show through.

Olive Nuttall is a very skilled writer, particularly for a first-time novelist. The plot is compelling and fully hooks the reader in with an original voice. Rosemary’s fate becomes more and more tenuous, will she get sucked into long term family dramas? Will she come to harm through her risky hookups or self-sabotage? Her black outs? Or just her existence as a trans girl in semi-rural New Zealand?

The way Nuttall writes is intimate and evocative, recalling music you may have heard, meals you’ve probably eaten and brilliant passages about the smells we all know- the instantly recognisable smell of home, the beer carpet and mould smell of students flats and the sweet sick smell of hospitals.

Maybe carve out some time to read Kitten when you’re feeling like a short challenge. Maybe read some content notes beforehand but do read it. Kitten is not a cute queer rom com or a sanitised version of what being young and trans means. Kitten is not a Netflix special, but Kitten is sincere, brave, deeply sad and sometimes quite sweet.

I wrote this review and others for an upcoming queer publication called Bent. Look out for it, it’s going to be very cool.

[Arlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited to read Kitten when I heard the protagonist is transgender and a kiwi, trans books are few and far between let alone one based in New Zealand. In the end I am a bit torn on it though. It felt like there were two stories going on, a love story and a story about trauma, and both suffered by competing with one another instead of being fully explored. To be fair life is like that too, trauma can’t be separated from your day to day life, but the execution of that still left me feeling dissatisfied by the end of the novel.

I also think the ending took away Rosemary’s autonomy. What is the message supposed to be? That all you need is the right person to heal you, it’s not something you could do on your own? Sure, the way BDSM is discussed by Thorn suggests that xey are very knowledgeable of the rules and boundaries and can practice safely with everyone’s enthusiastic consent, but that does not automatically make this a healthy relationship.

It’s very exciting to see yourself represented when your story is usually left untold, so I do think that a lot of people in the trans, poly, and BDSM communities will get a lot out of this book. The same for people who have experienced childhood trauma. The other reviews seem to confirm this, and my review isn’t a dig at any of them. I know and love people like Rosemary. But at the end of the day I was unhappy when I finished and I am not reading books just for a realistic character, there needs to be a message for us. I don’t think I would end up recommending Kitten apart from discussion with other trans readers. This will still be three stars as it was a well written easy read with a believable protagonist, and I did enjoy it most of the way through.

[JJ]

this an enjoyable read, sped thru it but i wish it could've been slightly longer to pad out some of the ideas more.

there's some threads that either *i missed* or the author didn't pull further: what's tom's purporse here? Rosemary seems to forget about him & his family after fucking his brother—is that to show she's avoidant or even just lacks empathy, like when she goes to take a twenty minute call w a random from tinder while her nan is dying in the hospital? Also, I could've missed it, but was going on with Mark? Literally just who was he?

feels like hamish just shows up for no reason and goes just as quick—wouldnt the emotional/dramatic arc be just the same w/o it? was it a hallucination? lol.

lots of empathy and patience is shown for rosemary, but she seems only really capable of reciprocating to her mum (i guess bc there's a shared experience)—so i was unsure of how much of rosemary's self-indulgence was a comical display of narcissism on the author's part, à la hannah horvath but trans, and how much was rightful frustration and anger. delicate line to walk, and sometimes i think the author fell off

i was unsure of what the meta-statement is? not that that's a terrible thing, but i could've been hand-held a little more bc im dumdum. imo i guess nobody has ever really told rosemary how to behave/hold herself to account/or just be treated as a child(like her parents make the kids call them by first names)—so she needs a daddy to aid that emotional growth.

the xe/xem/xyrs bs was grating, but outside of that it's a very nuanced and confronting book. i would recommend to my friends but they'd probably be turned off by the 'wellington' of it all.

[Kay Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant affirming book with a happy (for now) ending. Kitten / Rosemary has a great inclusive if occasionally imperfect family too. It's also a book where Content Warnings could be Spoilers so I'll put them at the end.

Anyone, especially those in Aotearoa New Zealand, may enjoy the modern flow of life and relatable elements for anyone trying to decide - Do I annoy my flatmate who's shared their Microsoft Office subscription? Do I have the energy to write that application? Do I swipe Right or Left or Block? How comfortable will I be going back to my small home town? Family needs me so I have to go, right?

This short book touches on a person recognizing their right to do what they need, not what looks appropriate to outsiders. It's like the goal of therapy helping people work out what works for them not fixing them to someone else's normal.

Anyone who loves Lou Reed's album Transformer and who is upset by references should read Ezra Furman's brilliant little book Transformer for context.
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Content Warning/ Spoilers:
This book includes historical child abuse and incest, current transphobic and homophobic slurs, drug taking, assault, off screen deaths (suicide of young person, natural death from old age), BDSM and consensual sex involving physical force. If you skip bits and jump ahead the content may feel uncomfortable. If you read the book from start to finish, it all fits.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The upside to reading New Zealand fiction is that so much of it is FANTASTIC.

The downside is that so relatively little of it has made it across the Pacific, so upon finishing Kitten (what has turned out to be one of my favorite reads of 2025) I am become DESPONDENT that I cannot handsell it to my queer customers.

There is so much to unpack in this slim tome. It's wholesome yet raunchy, harrowing yet comforting.

Femininity, trans-ness, generational trauma, family drama, the cycle of childhood SA, death, hurt/comfort, kink, and healing. There was a lot that I related to, in a way that made me wonder for half a second if the author had ever met my family.

Rosemary is so... complicated, so enigmatic and frustrating and funny and girly and gross and self-aware and horny and damaged. I LOVED her. The narrative voice is so distinct, but familiar. She feels like some of my friends.

There is some extremely heavy stuff in here (discussed but not shown), but it is handled in a way that provides comfort for the reader, whether or not it is something they've experienced themselves.

[Lark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book felt like it was rooted in queer culture, which made me feel cozy and at home with queer references, although a few were very New Zealand specific.
The MC’s anxious and funny voice makes this a very fast read, in spite of some really heavy topics (childhood sexual abuse, suicide, family trauma). Things get really steamy at some really inopportune moments (hospice), which I appreciate because ain’t that always the way in our youth? Love a trans MC who has a loving family, some bad phone habits and a horny streak.

I was really hoping there would be some therapy in addition to kink as therapy before the end of this book, but we can’t have it all. I hope Rosemary gets to, though.

[Dee Dee Vallance · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Rosemary, Nuttall has managed to create a character that, although complex and imperfect, is also very human and relatable. Put simply, Rosemary is a star. She has been so perfectly formed by Nuttall that you can’t help but gaze up at her and fall in love.

This world could, if Nuttall chooses, be returned to and explored because there is so much from Rosemary’s past yet to be unpacked and such uncertainty about her future.

I have done a full review on my Substack. Check it out here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/deedeev...

[alonso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in immersive and addictive Gen Z queer pop vernacular, I felt fluent and out of my depth as Olive took me into Rosemary’s world.

kitten is a wildly juxtaposing ride between Rosemary’s family, her hot queer sex life and her upsetting history with sexual abuse. This book sits with Greta and Valdin and Detransition, Baby! on my shelf of recent by-queer-for-queer faves.

Rosemary is a wonderfully complex, witty, messy, awkward and delightful character, I hope to read more from this author.

[Jordan Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS ONE WAS FOR THE GIRLS!!!! I fucking loved seeing these facets of queer sexuality and transition on the page in such a clear reeeeal and honest way. Voiced so much of da journey R&i have been muddling through these last few years. I would say very grounded, but not in the sense that we're ever bogged down in grit. Total fluidity throughout that seamlessly oscillates btwn embodiment conundrums, dreamy ideals, sex, family trauma, flux, loaded conceptions of "home.."...Kitten expertly pries open the facets on facets that illuminate in communicating any of this. YEEEEAH WOMEN

[Cadence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flew through this!! The fantasy of getting swept up and carried to safety by a broad-shouldered xe/xym baddie is completely intoxicating 💖💖 but I don't know how to feel about how the rest of the book fit in around that narrative, which was brutal and upsetting and wholly unexpected if I'm being honest! Will be recommending this to the girls and the gays w forewarning!

[Sophia Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A painful, beautiful read from start to finish. The NZ flavour gives it a warmth that I think I missed in similar trans slice-of-life contemporary fiction. A fair amount of difficult topics get touched on, so please do look up CWs if you'll need them ahead of time.

I laughed, cried, and when I finished it I knew I wanted to remember it.

[Alyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olive Nuttall is an extraordinary writer. From page one, Rosemary was REAL - quippy, funny, sad, and finding her way. While the plot structure didn’t quite hold up for the full novel, I am so appreciative of the depiction of BDSM and queer relationships as tools for healing, and to have a fully realized, fully out trans lead. This felt a little like Nevada, but also very much its own thing.

[Always Becominging · Rating 5 out of 5]

🐈‍⬛✨😭💦❤️‍🔥

it's my favourite novel

💖⚔️🌙📱😻

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very full on, very well written, fun read and I cried multiple times.

[Bug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had me hooked, full on/triggering but beautifully written.

[Jamie Sands · Rating 4 out of 5]

gonna need time to process this I think

lots of SA talk, Tumblr slang, unreliable narrator, family drama. There's good moments here but overall idk