I went into this book knowing nothing about the author, I just picked it up because it had cats! But it turns out that Gustafson is a cat-influencer and this is all about her life and her cats. I really enjoyed this! This book is, of course, about cats. But it's also about Courtney, and about life in general. It's really well written and I would've assumed this was a fantastic ghost writer if other reviewers hadn't said it matched her caption style.

It was really interesting to see how someone ended up with 30 cats and how they logistically dealt with that, as well as how she then moved to the stage she's at now with being able to capture and spay/neuter strays and provide care for them. I also really enjoyed seeing how Courtney talked about the communities around these cats, how they were also important and that she cared for them too.

This was a really quick read and one that I'm glad I picked up on a whim!

This is a really lovely book about a young woman who moves into a house and finds 30 feral cats living around her. She decides to try and help them and ‘a star is born’. Ms Gustafson has thousands of followers on social media (I’m not one) and I found the book a great insight into a world I’m unfamiliar with. The author becomes the one to call in surrounding areas when people find cats out and about and she becomes quite the expert.

The author is honest about her situation and her need for community and I think there’s a universality to that that many people will connect with ~ whether you like cats or understand social media. There are some funny bits, some sad bits, and always a belief that this will work out. Her interactions with hot dog man really sum up the dire situation with feral cats…

I’m not sure I’m the best audience for this book but I really enjoyed it. I was given a copy of the book by NetGalley

As a self-identifying cat lover, this book is gorgeous. I wasn't familiar with this specific cat rescue operation, but even going in blind it was such a delight. The way the author connected both personal and general life events to the cats (the slut-shaming one in particular stood out to me) was extremely well-done. I really enjoyed this - it's a great way to connect with cat lovers or animal rescue volunteers/employees, and it also shows the reader the ways that they could help any local feral cats. Normally I don't even read nonfiction, but this book was an easy exception. 10/10

'I wanted belonging to be something I could inherit, something I could step into fully formed. I imagined community as a space I could passively inhabit. It would be so many years before I learned that community was an action, something we build and rebuild and contribute to. That belonging is something we invent.'

I knew from the Poet Square Cat instagram account that Courtney Gustafson could write, but this collection of essays is beyond my expectations. This is a really fantastic memoir about cats, but more importantly about community, injustice and activism. With the current state of the world, it is easy to feel hopeless, and like you cannot do anything to help anyone. This collection of essays reminded me that community is at the heart of change, and that support can (and should) start small. Weeks later, so many points have stuck with me, and I have found myself regularly referring back to chapters in discussions.

I cannot wait for this to come out so everyone I know can read it (I will insist).

Thank you to Penguin, Courtney Gustafson and Net Galley for the e-arc - all opinions are my own.

Purr-fect! A heart-warming memoir told through cats. I loved getting to know all of the Poets Square kitties and the impact Courtney had on their lives and vice versa! The illustrations were beautiful in their simplicity. I could read about Sad Boy and MK all day!

2.5 I read this with no prior knowledge of the author or the cats. I mention this specifically because I think you almost need to; for me, this had a “reading the second in a series with very little context” feel to it!

Story and Cadence:
🐱I found the storytelling poor and suffering from a short attention span. There’s a lot of jumping around in time and introducing characters only to discard them and pick them back up later on. This made the flow feel disjointed and had a very repetitious effect that felt like an early draft, rather than a published work. There’s a lot of meandering and the book felt directionless (it doesn’t end so much as stop, which didn’t help).
🐱The book features cats but Gustafson gives herself equal attention. I had no idea who she was and couldn’t connect with her as a character because she wasn’t fleshed out.
🐱Gustafson admits around 30% of the way through that she mishandled the cat situation but it comes a bit too late and a bit too defensively to land after watching her make mistake after mistake.
🐱While it didn’t bring anything new to the conversation, I appreciated the section about misogyny about cats and cat guardians, particularly how some men perceive both, the toxic masculinity around neutering, and how projection and anthropomorphization that can deeply harm pets.
🐱The story lacked emotional hook. There’s a lot of heartache with injured or dying cats and human poverty but the writing was detached and I didn’t feel anything to compel me forward.

Characters:
🐱Despite being around the same age, I couldn’t connect with Gustafson as a character. She comes across as whiny, obsessed with how she’s perceived (including a harmful obsession with being “good”), with harmful internalized misogyny, and defensive. I found her actions and inner monologues incredibly frustrating. I genuinely didn’t understand her motivations: she complains a lot about the expense and time of caring for the cats, and I found myself increasingly curious why she took this on instead of contacting the City, rescue groups, vet networks, etc. She kept saying couldn’t afford it and it was too hard. By the end, I was grateful to get out of her head.
🐱I found Richard’s characterization great. I got a good feel for him as a person, I was emotionally invested in his story, and despite his flaws, it was easy to cheer him on!

Language, Writing, and Vibe:
🐱The writing was all over the place: at times, overwrought and flowery descriptions juxtaposed with skating over details about the cats that this reader would have valued spending more time on.
🐱Gustafson spends an inordinate amount of time, like the first 25% of the book, justifying the rationale for posting these cats on social media
🐱There was a coldness, a hardness, to this writing that kept me at arm’s length. At one point, Gustafson invites us to look at our cat while she tells us she knows every bad thing that can happen to them. It’s like she was trying to be shocking or edgy in a hamfisted way of, idk, stirring emotion? It was bizarre.
🐱Italics, which are commonly used to delineate thoughts, were used as speech in this book. I never got used to that.
🐱The cover is beautiful but I found the vibe navel-gazey with a hopeless, bleak undercurrent.

Maybe this is a different experience for people who are already familiar with this author. Overall, I was disappointed by this book. I feel like these online celebrity memoirs aren’t designed for readership that aren’t already familiar with the story/people already. 🤷‍♀️

I had my request to review this book approved by Fig Tree / Penguin on NetGalley

As a cat person, I found this book quite interesting and moving from the beginning.

I hadn't followed Courtney before, but reading this book made me feel like I was there with her. I can relate to how she feels, and I can imagine what it was like for her. This book is well-written. You can feel the love Courtney put into creating it, as well as the emotions she went through.

If you love cats this is a treat its purrfectly riveting. An ode to societies downtrodden and how 1 person can make such a difference. Catastropically charming.

Thank you to Courtney Gustafson, Penguin - Fig Tree, and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was my most anticipated release for 2025 as I’ve been intently following Poet’s Square Cats for 4/5 years. I cried when Sad Boy died. I cried when MK and Monkey became pettable and then I cried again when they died. I have cried so many times over these cats. When I found out Courtney was writing a book almost two years ago, I couldn’t wait for the day I could finally read it. Her captions on Instagram are always so well-thought out and beautifully written.

I binge read this in a few hours. I loved the background life story interwoven with the story of the cats. I think with most auto-biographies you appreciate the story more when you know the person already, and this is definitely true of this book.

I loved relearning about all the different cats and the nod towards the infamous feline Thanksgiving dinner TikTok and house fundraiser. The book is also a stark reminder of how weak the US social care system is. If people don’t have the financial means to look after themselves, and a weak social safety net, how can we expect them to be able to care for feral animals correctly? You only have to look to countries in Scandinavia to see the trend between a far superior social care system and the rates of poverty and stray animals.

The illustrations and book cover are absolutely beautiful. The book cover sort of reminds me of the thumb / fingerprint doodle art they would do on art attack! I would have loved to have seen some actual photographs of the cats too though and wished the book was longer. A solid 8.5-9/10 at the moment but I might go cry at a video of Sad Boy and Lola and come back to give it an 11.

I loved this book so, so much. For starters, I've never seen any description so accurate of how it feels to love a weird little furry monster so dearly that you feel like it's walking round with your heart held hostage as it tries to get into every dangerous situation it can find. And to then multiply that feeling to all the hurt and lost and lonely cats in the world.

But it's not just a story of the colony of cats the author found when she moved into a new house, or how it led to working to look after feral cats across the city. It's about learning to find and build community, to get out of survival mode and come out of the cold. To witness suffering, grief, loss, and brokenness in both feral cats and the (usually poor) communities they live in and to keep showing up.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review (but I'm going to be buying a copy of this book to keep for myself as soon as it comes out)..

For full transparency, I’ve been following Courtey and the cats for a few years now. I’ve been waiting on this book so I was so pleased to be given an advace copy through Netgalley.

This book was a great read and really dove into Courtey’s life and how she ended up inheriting 30 stray cats. My only wish was that there were more chapters about the Poet Square cats. I’d be happy if there were another book all about their lives, as I really enjoy the way Courtey writes about them.

Pleased to say that I didn’t cry at this book through, knowing the story of some of the cats made me so worried that I wouldn’t read it at work in case I broke into tears.

All in all it was a good read for fans of Poet Square, and for those who relate to the complexities of cat rescue. Here’s hoping for another book!

A book filled with love and joy and grief and cats. What’s not to love! I’ve followed Courtney and the cats of Poets Square for a few years now, so when I saw this book I was absolutely ecstatic. Gustafson does an excellent job at combining the weight of caring for feral cats with the weight of being human in a world that always seems to be a little bit against you. I loved the insight into TNRing and how this ties to caring for the people in the same communities as the cats. The book is filled with empathy and heart, and you can feel the passion flowing from the pages. It’s well written, interesting, and beautifully designed with little cat portraits for each chapter. The writing both broke my heart and filled me with hope for a better world in which we can care for both feral cats and for each other. Overall, an easy five stars and a pleasure to read.

my most anticipated book of 2025 and it has NOT let me down! @poetssquarecats has long been my favourite instagram account and i genuinely feel so honoured to receive a copy before its publication in april.

overall, a fantastic memoir that is equally heartbreaking and inspiring. gustafson paints a vivid picture of the reality of caring for stray cats, and crucially highlights the importance of community support for everyone. i wish i could say more that does this book justice, because i think it was wonderful. thank you for sharing the cats with us! i would love to read more from gustafson in the future.

i loved the illustrations too!

[thank you to netgalley for the advance copy! all opinions are my own.]

ourtney Gustafson's Poets Square is a delightful and deeply moving memoir that surprises at every turn. While it begins as a story about thirty feral cats, it quickly becomes clear that it is not really about the cats—it’s about life, resilience, and the unexpected ways we find meaning in a chaotic world.

When Courtney moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighbourhood of Tucson, Arizona, she discovered she had inherited a colony of feral cats—a challenge she was utterly unprepared for amidst the upheaval of a new relationship, a pandemic, and her struggles with mental health and financial insecurity. Initially resistant, she soon found herself drawn into the world of animal rescue, and through it, into a deeper understanding of care and community.

What unfolds is a memoir that beautifully balances heartbreak and humour, illustrating the lessons these scrappy, endearing creatures taught her about love, persistence, and hope. From the quirks of cats like Mushroom Risotto and Sad Boy to the unexpected joy of building a supportive online community, Gustafson’s story is as much about navigating the complexities of modern life as it is about animal rescue.

Poets Square is a poignant exploration of what it means to care—about others, about ourselves, and about the world around us. Gustafson’s vivid prose captures not only the challenges of animal welfare but also the healing power of connection, even amidst grief and broken systems.

A truly fantastic memoir, this book is about cats—but also not really about cats. It’s about finding moments of light in the darkness and embracing hope when the world feels overwhelming. Whether you’re an animal lover or simply someone searching for inspiration in the little things, Poets Square will leave you deeply touched and profoundly inspired.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

Really enjoyable memoir - it's not at all linear and the chapters and sections are pretty piecemeal but it creates such a lovely whole. A perfect read for anyone who is seeking a way to change their life slowly and perhaps without even noticing. Highly recommended and thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I requested this book because of my love for cats and experience with stray and feral cats.
The author moves in to a house in Poets Square, and the community of cats around her house keep her company; help her through the difficult experiences in her life.
I had no prior knowledge of the author and her experience, except for the information in the blurb.
While the experience was entirely relatable, sympathetic and familiar to me, the characterisation of each cat, and how the little things in life make so much meaning.
Yet, the writing and the storytelling (what made it to the narrative) often fell flat for me.
I might as well not be the right audience for this and cat-loving, experience-appreciating may not be enough to like this book.
I suppose a younger audience can enjoy this more.

I am not entirely sure what I was expecting from this book, but I found myself utterly unable to put it down. It's a story of someone saving their own life by accidentally saving thirty, feral cats that they inherit when they move into a new home. It's so interesting, not just about the cats but about the nature of how we treat animals and by extension, how we treat ourselves.