Review by Ian Keogh

Bat Kitty likes playing video games, but isn’t very good at them, so when an ad appears suggesting the purchase of some mega-armour being desirable, Kitty is in full agreement. However, it costs money, and she has none. If she wants it, she’s going to have to work to earn the money.

How that plays out is going to be predictable enough for anyone who’s read the other Bad Kitty books, but that’s part of the joy. We know Kitty’s going to make a mess of things, and we know it’s going to feature Nick Bruel’s wonderfully expressive cartooning, contorting Kitty’s body into call kinds of torturous shapes and pulling some amazing expressions. They’re at their best when Kitty tries to avoid getting wet while washing the car, but the sample art features a running joke to which Kitty’s been told not to respond. Will she retain her cool?

A clever aspect is all the jobs entrusted to Kitty are the types of job parents might give to their children, especially if they have a big garden or yard, and a good joke is how the assorted jobs follow the same route of chaos around Kitty’s garden. What turns out to be the longest job is babysitting with the full package of yukkiness associated with infants presented, including the nappy change. That’s inventively told, sparing us the worst details.

There’s no great change from book to book for Bad Kitty, but individually they’re smartly constructed to extract the maximum amount of laughs from messing with Kitty’s comfort zone.