Cat Cay Island is inhabited by strange cat-like creatures, and your visit there takes a scary turn when one of your younger brothers goes missing and a rescue mission to find him turns into one of two scary paths, one of which leads to the "Keeper of the Cats" and one of which leads into a lighthouse under siege by an army of cats.
This book provides examples of:
- Cain and Abel: Jacob and Katrina Madd play with this trope, as the roles of Cain and Abel switch depending on the storyline.
- Cat Stereotype: As per tradition, black cats are associated with misfortune; the third storyline have you and your brothers trying to return to the inn your family's staying, but right off the bat you end up stumbling into a pair of black cats in the streets. From that point on, all paths in the third storyline leads to bad endings, regardless which way you choose.
- Cats Are Mean: The book is built on this trope, and the reader's character is all too aware of it.
- Cats Hate Water: You try to use this trope against Katrina in one ending, by use of a hose... shame you didn't check if said hose was connected to anything.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Katrina Madd. Some of the endings have you pull an Enemy Mine, while one of the truly good endings reveals the real, good Katrina had been held hostage by her brother Jacob since before the book started. After freeing her, she decides to confront the impostor you met at the beginning.
- Dumbwaiter Ride: In the lighthouse, you attempt an escape from a room full of hostile cats by leaping into a dumbwaiter. Unfortunately, it malfunctions causing you to fall to your death.
- Failure Is the Only Option: "Story A" has no completely good ending. In the two endings where the reader wins, his or her parents will either become the new "Keeper of the Cats" or the reader himself/herself will turn into a dog. As noted above, the storyline where you encounter two black cats ends badly no matter what choices you make.
- Here We Go Again!: You managed to escape from Cat Cay Island and return to the inn with your parents, but to your horror, your parents had adopted one of the cats behind your back.
- Lighthouse Point: Much of this adventure is kicked off when you're searching for your missing younger brother, found him in an abandoned lighthouse after he's drawn out by a mysterious force, and must decide whether to stay in the lighthouse for a night after being warned by the lighthouse's keeper or to ignore his advice and brave the streets full of ghostly felines.
- Little Bit Beastly: One of the endings ends with you defeating the evil catpeople and leaving the island forever, only to realize on the drive home that you have grown a dog tail.
- Mega Neko: Katrina has the ability to transform herself into a building-sized giant cat to chase you down, as you discover after ticking her off too much.
- Missing Child: Much of the story's plot is kicked off when your youngest brother strays out in the night, and both you and your other brother (the book assumes you're the eldest) goes out to find him. And then you're forced to spend a night - without any adults - in a spooky town infested by ghostly cats.
- Morton's Fork: You have been cornered and are about to be devoured by ghost cats. The book then presents you with a wordsearch puzzle to determine whether you'll survive. If you don't solve the puzzle, the cats eat you, and you are told it's your own fault for being too lazy to solve a simple puzzle. If you do solve it … the cats eat you anyway, because you were too absorbed in the puzzle to notice them advancing on you.
- Not My Driver: You can attempt to escape Cat Cay Island by hitching a ride, but as soon as you close the doors, you realize Katrina Madd is the driver.
- Out of the Frying Pan: You may escape Cat Cay Island early in the story, but this only leads to a bad ending where you're trapped in another town full of ghostly dogs.
- Punny Name: Katrina Madd, the Keeper of the Cats of Cat Cay Island.
- Skewed Priorities: If you succeed in the "SPIRAL STIRCASE" puzzle, you become so absorbed in finding more words that you don't notice you're in danger, and die anyway.
- Town with a Dark Secret: The town of Cat Cay on Cat Cay Island, where residents are told to stay indoors after dark, thanks to a curse infesting the streets with ghostly cats. One of the bad endings has you discovering several buildings hidden underneath the sand dunes on the beach, along with a newspaper clipping revealing how the cats just showed up one day and took over the town.
- This Loser Is You: In one path of the book, you have to make a list of words from the phrase "Spiral staircase", and if you don't get enough, the book insults you for your laziness in getting such a simple task wrong.
