Kitten: Stacey Yu on Mothers, Class, and Becoming Yourself

Releasing August 4, 2026 from Viking, Kitten is Stacey Yu's dazzling debut — named to the Center for Fiction's 2026 First Novel Prize longlist and celebrated by the New York Times as "beguiling." A darkly playful, wryly observant novel about mothers, class, love, and the dizzying task of becoming yourself, it follows a young woman adrift after college whose growing obsession with her boyfriend's cat ushers her into the possibilities of her own life.

The Becoming Premium

Yu identifies the "becoming tax" — the quiet cost that young adults pay as they try to assemble an identity in the gap between their mothers' expectations and their own desires. In a 2026 world where the transition to adulthood is more expensive and uncertain than ever, Kitten is a timely meditation on what it means to become yourself without breaking the family that made you.

Lessons for Families:

• Mothers and Daughters: The complex inheritance of expectation passed between generations of women.
• Class and Aspiration: How economic mobility shapes — and strains — family bonds.
• The Self-Becoming: Honoring a young adult's need to discover their own life without shame.

The ChildCost Verdict

Kitten is a beguiling, unforgettable debut. Yu proves that the tender work of becoming oneself is among the most important family stories we tell — and that cats, as it turns out, make excellent guides.