Queer folx. Cats. What more do I need in a cool picture/mini bio book? Uhm, nothing, I think you’ll find. When attracting me to media, if you can sell me on the fact that is has queer characters and or cats, I’m pretty much sold forever and ever.

This book is chocked full of famous names, past and present alongside their (mostly) furry, feline friends. It’s a cool look at some of our icons, and would make the perfect addition to any cool coffee table.

It’s out in May of next year, so keep an eye out for it, and peep that gorgeous pic of Jujubee on the cover! ❤

Aaamaazing!!!!!!! With icons like Freddie Mercury, Elton John, George Michael, Josephine Baker and Janis Joplin, just to name a few, how could you resist? This is a work of art full of breathtaking images of celebrated and infamous
notable individuals of our time, with their beloved felines. I was captivated by the memorable photographs depicting these notorious cat lovers. Being a cat lover myself, I could not get enough. I loved learning about the lives of these influencers and their furry companions. I was fortunate to receive an ARC, but still anxiously anticipating a physical copy so I can savor all of the beautiful and stunning pictures. Thank you NetGalley and Chronicle Books for this treasure. 5 purrfect 😻⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

Beautiful, intimate portraits of queer notables with their feline friends. I really enjoyed the tidbits of information that are given in each short bio, along with the heartwarming imagery. A great read, and a great book to have for all cat lovers.

I have to admit that I didn't know I needed this book until stumbling upon it. While I also would've been perfectly content with a book only filled with photography, Queer Icons and Their Cats provides readers with a page of information about each icon, accompanied by a photograph starring themselves and their feline friends. I think this would make a fantastic coffeetable read, a way to invite others into learning about Queer Icons in an inviting cat-friendly way.

I loved this. I loved the photos, the biographies, the diversity, all of it. Famous LGBTQ folks from all walks of life are profiled, from scientists to actors to activists -- Elton John to Rachel Carson to Marlene Dietrich to Sharon Needles to Anthony Perkins and so many more. Each bio takes up one page and is accompanied by a photo of the person with their cat (or a cat). A couple of reviewers griped that lots of the photos were of the people with "random" cats but that was only the case in a couple of photos and the people were still known to be cat lovers. One person is pictured with a big cat in a zoo, but the bio noted that she spent significant time visiting animals at the zoo on a regular basis and you can see she's clearly comfortable hanging out with the animal. The photo of Josephine Baker is with a leopard but the bio said it was hers. Some of these photos are decades old so you can't really blame them for not having a perfectly posed picture with one particular cat.

Do note that most of the photos aren't the professional, posed types like the cover. The modern ones tend towards that type but many of the others just show the people relaxing at home with their cat or something like that. I like that better, but don't expect all artistic cat-and-icon images.

All three of my oldest kids would love this book. I highly enjoyed it myself. This is another book that I'd probably give as a Christmas present if it were going to be released in time.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

This book is great for the pictures of cats alone, but the information in it is excellent, too. I learned a lot about queer icons I didn't know were queer, or hadn't heard of before. I liked it a lot, and was excited to see JuJuBee on the cover.

I just wish it had been a little longer.

Review to come April 25 2021 to blog/goodreads.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

I just couldn't resist this book. I love cats (despite being allergic to them), I love LGBT books, I love photography books. So this seemed a match made in heaven and I was eager to start reading it. 

In this one we meet various LGBT Icons (sorry, I just don't feel comfortable calling them queer, I know I as a bi-person don't want to be called queer) and their cats. Along with a photograph we also get some information on the icon, what they did in life, family, their cats, and other things. It was quite interesting to read especially since I don't know a lot of the people mentioned. Some truly famous people I recognised, but others, not really. So I liked finding out about these people. 

I loved that the cats aren't just house cats. We also see leopards and other cats that one may not want as a pet. I loved the diversity and it made seeing each photograph even more fun. What kind of cat would be on there? A house cat? Which one? A not-so-house cat? Which one? 

I loved that this book isn't just about people who live now/are alive now. It also features LGBT icons who died. Like Freddie Mercury. 

All in all a good book to read and very interesting. I love the photographs and learned about people.

Talk about a great gift! The greatest cross over of all time? Beautiful photography. A neat little book about lovely cats and their lovely, iconic owners. 4.5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review,

Beautiful photography. A great book about cats and their owners. I wrote down some new queer icons to learn more about.. Just a lovely little book.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review,

I was granted complimentary access to an eARC of Queer Icons and Their Cats by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was great! I wasn't sure if this was going to be just labelled pictures or what, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that every full-page photo is accompanied by a full-page mini bio about the icon (and cat) featured. In digital format, the order is photo, bio, bio, photo, which I assume means they're printing photos back-to-back on appropriate paper and bios back to back on a lighter stock, but this added the fun element of "do I know who this one is?" on every second photo. Another fun game to play: spot the "cats" that aren't domestic house cats. I spotted 2 cheetahs, an ocelot and a chihuahua (who also had a feline friend.)

Whether this ends up being your coffee table conversation starter or just a favourite pleasure read on the shelf, this is a great book to have around if anything about the LGBTQIA community speaks to you.

Wonderful book, that gives you exactly what it says on the cover.
It contains photographs of wide range of people (and their cats) who have influenced the LGBTQ community, accompanied by a short bio of each person, what they mean to the community and how felines played a part in their lives: Great job on fitting so much info in such a short space, and still have it be comprehensive and to the point. Kudos to the writer/editor.

Jujubee and her beloved cat Priss look absolutely radiant in the cover photograph of this book. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to capture a shot like this, but if on point as it is here, it reveals a lot of the personality of both feline and owner.

In fact, a lot of the celebrity cat owners featured here (a lot of whom I had never heard of before) seem more relaxed in the presence of their furry friends, which adds a wonderfully disarming quality to many of the portraits.

Some are really old photographs, such as the sepia shot of Clifton Webb, while others are old in the sense that they show the cat owners at an impossibly young age (Elton John and George Michael spring to mind.) Others stretch the definition of ‘cat’, such as Ahohni at the Bronx Zoo with an orphaned big cat.

One of the cleverest pics is that of Sharon Needles and her careful positioning of a cat statue (there is a real pussy as well, no need to raise an eyebrow), while the severest shot is of Judith Butler, looking stern against a white staircase, with a cat positioned a few steps behind her – and looking even sterner, if that is possible.

My only complaint is that some of the portraits are clearly ‘snaps’, in the sense that there is little professionalism involved (where the poor cat has ‘green’ eye and appears to be a blob held rather gamely by their human, as if they will make a bolt for it at the slightest relaxation of the hold – which of course they will do. They are cats, after all.) Plus the fact that one can never have enough cat pics, so the limit of one per celebrity is a tad parsimonious.

Each photograph is accompanied by a brief essay elaborating on the human’s claim to fame and their connection to the feline world. The collection is certainly eclectic, ranging from trailblazing trans porn star and producer Buck Angel (love that name!) to Matthew Mitcham, Chaz Bono and Marlene Dietrich.

Despite the assertion in the introduction that the emergence of ‘cat men’ is challenging toxic masculinity, the majority of these photographs are of women. Not that this is any issue, of course, as the authors note:

Ultimately, the nonhuman animal world is not as binary as our human society’s gatekeepers would have us believe. Animals don’t about human social constructs like gender, and they don’t discriminate based on sexuality. Cats, in particular, expect to be revered and adored by all humans …

This was really great. I really enjoyed seeing all these queer icons and their cats. I think it'd make a nice coffee table book.

This book was so sweet and awesome! I "met" a whole bunch of new celebrities I didn't knew were queer or didn't knew at all, let alone knew were cat people. Some, like Freddy Mercury, were quite obvious, of course, but nontheless, this book provied a whole lot of new and awesome information.
It was nice to read and I enjoyed the pictures which had been included to the book.
A good book, I really liked it!
Free copy proived by Netgalley; thank you!

Thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so adorable. When I saw Ju Ju on it WITH her cat I just HAD to read it! It was really informational and gave a list of queer people ranging from drag queens, writers, filmmakers, designers, activists and many more. There were quite a few people I didn't recognize and got to learn a lot about queer icons posing with cats.

This would make a great coffee table book. The pictures were stunning and the mini biographies were to the point. I feel this is an important to read through and dip your toe into some current queer icons/history...plus there's cats!

5/5

A delightful beautifully illustrated books all cats lovers will enjoy.. whether straight or queer, just the photograph of artists, writers, media starts and their cats made this book a wonderful work for me,

Probably it's because the culture differences, I didn't find many icons I know about.
But I love cats.
Should be a good killing-time entreatment kind of a book.

What a joy of a book! Went through it in no time, would make a great gift for so many people.

A mix of posed photos, portraits, snapshots, selfies, with just enough queer history in the mix.

May have found a typo or two, would like to know who to contact about that (if they want me to that is).

This is a wonderful book. It has beautiful photos, as well as interesting information about each subject. I especially love hearing about the special bond between the person and their beloved companion. And any book with one of my favorites, Jujubee, on the cover pretty much guarantees that I'll pick it up! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC for review.

So stinking cute. First I love cats so I was mesmerized but also it was so cool to read about some famous influential backgrounds while seeing a personal side to them. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I loved reading about all the icons and the subsequent cats. There were so many people included that I hadn’t heard of and now am glad I know a little sliver of their life and work. The prospect of cat photos is what drew me to the book and it didn’t disappoint. This would make a beautiful coffee table book to dip in and out of! The only thing that is a bit misleading is that not all the cats are owned by the people highlighted, that doesn’t bother me, but it may for some others.
Thank you to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for the early digital copy of this in exchange for a review.

Queer Icons and Their Cats show us how influential cats have been in the lives of different queer people. I think this book was great and would love to have is a ta coffee table book for all my friends to read. I of course loved every single cat in this book but I also got to know all the different people a bit more.

what a lovely view of LGBTQ icons and the cats they loved <3. The short little vignettes are delightful and informative, and made me want to look up, follow on social media, read further, about all these inspiring people. and KITTIES!!!
thanks to Netgalley for an early review copy.

This book is a celebration of queer icons past and present. Each person is photographed with a cat of some kind. It starts with the history of how people have treated cats. It isn't a ton of information, but it definitely peaks your interest. There were a lot of really interesting facts about cats. Each icon has two pages, one full of information about them and a picture. I love the pictures. I wasn't familiar with everyone in the book, but I enjoyed it and learned a lot.

This book is certainly full of queer icons --as if the cover didn't give that away with our Queen Jujubee. There are some you'll expect like Freddie Mercury, well known for his love of cats; but there are also some that will be a surprise. A pleasant surprise for me was the inclusion of Josephine Baker as her sexuality was not as publicized when she was alive --oh yeah, and her "cat' was a CHEETAH! There are a few other big cats and I really appreciate them because they are so cute and really make the book so much more exciting.

The snippets of biographical information about the people and their pets is nice. Some of the photographs feel like little intrusions into the lives of our favorite celebrities. Some of the photographs feel more like awkward candids that also happen to feature cats. Those certainly feel like stretches and that they were used simply to include notable queer icons like James Baldwin.

I really like the inclusion of women in STEM in this series like Lynn Conway and Rachel Carson. I am a little hesitant to be too excited about Carson and some other not out in their lifetimes queer icons listed as I have mixed feelings on whether or not they would have self-identified in the way the book presents.

I received an uncorrected proof of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The nature of this book lends itself to a short review, but I really enjoyed reading this book, and can definitely see it as being a great coffee table book. I'm excited to pick up a physical copy when it is published. It's an adorable set of short artist biographies paired with photos of the artists and their feline friends.

Beautiful queer lives with beautiful feline lives. What more could you want? I really enjoyed seeing all the gorgeous photos. Would definitely recommend for anyone LGBT, especially if they are a cat lover.

What a gorgeous book! I was fascinated reading about these icons, especially Dusty Springfield and Elton John! This is the perfect coffee table book! And a terrific conversation starter! Thanks to NetGalley and Chronicle books for the ePub!

I really enjoyed this little book! Packed with information on queer icons, I learned so much. I especially loved the extra pages for James Baldwin. It was very readable and I obviously loved all the pictures of the cats mentioned. I read it with my own cats snuggled near by 🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛

An interesting and creative way to spotlight queer icons. I loved the variety of icons featured--both historical and contemporary. At the same time, the connection to cats often felt tangential and almost unnecessary. While some sections, like that of Freddie Mercury, focused on how central his cats were in his life, the references to cats in many other sections felt like an afterthought.

I greatly enjoyed Queer Icons and their Cats. However the title was misleading. The people in the book are not all, in my opinion, icons and they are not always photographed with their cats. I found many of the photos stunning, but several were like snapshots you never print. The bio’s were educational and entertaining but the title evoked a need to see beautiful photographs. I wanted a coffee table book of photos, but each icon had a one page bio and one photograph. Overall, it was entertaining, but did not fulfill the expectations I had based on the cover.

I didn’t really get what I expected with this book. I was prepared for a book that focused more on personal stories between known LGBT+ persons and their cats.

This is more of a gift/ coffee table style book, that introduces you to some very cool gay icons, who also happen to like cats. You get a short bio about each person featured, and a nice picture of them with a cat (often but not always their own.)

I don’t recommend this if you’re looking for that feline-friendly heart tug. However, I do really like the variety and diversity in the people featured. And I think it’s a really cool way to be introduced to some new personal heroes. I think if you either like viewing different portrait styles, or are looking to introduce/ be introduced to more LGBT+ personalities, this could be a good starting point.

This is a coffee table book of famous queers, past and present, with their cats. Some are posed, as the cover is, some are from historical documents. Anthony Perkins is shown with his cat, as is Elton John. The modern icons, the ones who I have never heard of because I guess I am not keeping up with the current queer icons, look more posed, perhaps having been shot for this book.

It is interesting reading the little one page blurbs about each icon, and how they are important to queer history. And it is fun to go through history and see how cats were favorite pets of people like Freddy Mercury, who would call his cats when he was on tour.

It is rather fun that queer culture has a coffee table book, now, with LGBTQ people and their cats.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Honestly, what could be better than learning about Queer Icons? A book full of Queer Icons and their cats!!!!
This book was amazing! I am not a member of the LGBTQ community, but I consider myself an ally to the community and with that being said, there were so many icons in this book that I did not know! Reading through the bios of these incredible people was inspiring and humbling and eye-opening. The fact that it was all topped off with pictures of adorable cats was perfection!

--Boring Photos of People with Their Cats--

Based on the glamorous cover photo of the drag performer Jujubee, I thought the book would be filled with similar photos of various human beings, on some spectrum of the LGBTQ, dressed to the 9s (meow!) and with some kind of cat.

So, what is actually in the book are some lighthearted short bios/stories about various people you might term "celebrity", who identify with the LGBTQ label, and who own a cat.

The book seems to be an occasion to celebrate LGBTQ celebrities that own a cat.

Hey, why not?

So, if you are a person who will buy anything with cat pictures in it...This is your book.

And if you are a person who will buy anything that has an LGBTQ theme...This is your book.

If you are a person, like me, who likes looking at stunning fashion shots like the Cover Photo, this is NOT your book. Looking at the cover was the only gratification I got...oh...except for a profile in there of someone I knew a long time ago before they became famous. That was a nice bonus.

The bios are quite nice, but as this is supposed to be a "coffee table photo book", if the photos are boring, and the stories are "nicey nicey stories about people and their cats"...it only gets 3 stars from me for "being nice" and boring.

Loove it! It's exactly what the title says, queer icons and cats - a perfect combination if you ask me.
I love the write up for each person, it was very informative, and the photos were fantastic.

For generations, cats have been a symbol of deviancy, of witchcraft and negative feminism. In recent years however, the cat has been reclaimed and lovingly exalted as a positive image of femininity and companionship in the LGBTQIA+ scene. This book is a compendium of stories - of queer icons, and their cats.

This book took a much more serious tone than I had expected from the title and cover, but after that initial surprise wore off I found that I enjoyed that more I would have liked a silly tone. This book is a treasure trove of facts and small insight into the lives of some of the most influential and wonderful trans and queer celebrities of the last 120 years.

There were quite a few people in here that I hadn't heard of, which makes this a wonderfully educational book for those of us less well informed on the subject of queer history in popular culture. I feel that if I had read this book before reading Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl earlier this year, I would have more fully understood a lot of the cultural references.

Overall I found this quick read to be informative, empathetic and insightful, as well as being a lot of fun.

Queer Icons and Their Cats
ARC uncorrected proof, Netgalley Review

I did a double take when I saw this cover (internal monologue :"wait a minute, is that Jujubee?! It is!! I have to read this"), and read it I did.

Queer Icons and Their Cats opens with a passage about the importance of pets, but specifically cats, in the lives of LGBTQ individuals. What follows are short bios and photos of, you guessed it, queer icons and their cats.
There's a wide range of people featured: chef, drag queens, actors, comedians, and activists to name a few. It was easy to read and informative.
It's the type of book that I definitely think does better in a physical copy vs ebook (which is how I read it). There are a few people in my life who I know would also enjoy this book. -- it would make a great gift.

This book is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: it features of variety of queer icons photographed with their feline friends.

This would make a great coffee table book as it features beautifully-captured photos alongside short bios of the queer icons featured. It made for an interesting read.

I really enjoyed the book even though I am not a cat fan but it was really good. I was cool seeing all these queer icons and their cats. I would love if the was a version that included queer icons and their dogs. I can see purchasing this book for friends who are cat lovers.

Queer Icons and Their Cats does what it says on the tin, mostly: a page or two about a famous queer person and the beloved animals in their lives, with a photo filling the opposite page depicting them with a cat. Frequently it's their own companion; sometimes it's a cat who lives with someone else. But with one appalling exception, it's always adorable.

Unfortunately, the copy I saw also included a certain self-proclaimed “man with a pussy” along with a glowing description of him. That guy isn’t a queer icon, he’s a jackass who was assigned jenny at birth. He said non-binary people like me don’t deserve access to hormones, and he said that when a trans woman is murdered by her date, it's her fault if she didn't disclose beforehand that she has a penis. I’ve explained to the publisher that he’s no angel, and my opinion of the book will be heavily influenced by his inclusion or removal.

I am grateful to the authors, the publisher, and NetGalley for a free advance review copy.

This is fun as a coffee table book, and I do appreciate the wide variety of the people included in the book. It included people I knew and didn't, as well as people I knew and didn't know were queer, which was a fun surprise for those. I was very pleasantly surprised with the inclusion of Frenchie Davis, who has always famously deserved better! Overall this was cute if not life-changing, but I don't think it was supposed to be, and that's just fine!

Nice collection of photographs with short, informative and entertaining narratives for each artist that is featured. The title is a little misleading. Though many of the Icons are posed with their feline family members, some just happen to have a cat in the picture. Some posed, some candid.

My favorites are the cover and the expressive shot of Chaz Bono. A few fascinated me and several I found out of place. Overall, an interesting collection.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. It's a great coffee table book. Let's break it down :
- Great introduction to so many important Queer icons with enough informations to situate yourself if you don't know them.
- Funny bits and anecdote that make you see some icons with a new light
- Stunning pictures (I particularly loved the more candid ones)

Con :
Although I understand many factors can limit the choices, I was surprised to see Sharon Needles (no tea no shade, I love Sharon) but not RuPaul himself ! I also wish there had been a more broader representation of LGBTQ+ icons (more trans, non-binary, gender fluid, ace people, pansexual, etc.)

This is a generally fun and sometimes informative coffee-table style book, and it would make a great gift.

Although I love the idea of this book, the execution fell a bit short of the mark. Some of the entries felt like a bit of a reach to fit the theme.

3.5/5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishing for providing this review copy !!

Really great educational book giving tidbits from vast queer icons! Loved it although some images were missing and it ruined the reading experience and i felt a bit bored with some of the info dumping

A small bugbear, first of all; this book would really be better called 'Queer Icons and Cats', because only about half of the cats in here actually belong to (or perhaps own, depending on your view of feline/human relationships) the aforementioned queer icons. That's not a criticism, just an observation!

This book is an interesting volume, with a photo of a famous queer person and a cat on one page and a brief description of the person (and sometimes the cat) on the other. It's really at its best when it's delving into the personalities of the cats involved; it's a sad fact that cats outshine humans in terms of beauty, interest, personality and talent in absolutely all cases, and although I'm a big fan of many of the people included in this book, the cats were definitely the best bit. Special mention to the trash-eating cat of a Michelin-starred chef. The audacity of that kitty is truly inspiring. All jokes aside, I genuinely enjoyed learning about the nuances of these people's personalities as conveyed through the lens of their interaction with our feline overlords; I think a lot can be said about a person by how they treat cats.

I also really appreciated the broad spectrum of people included here, from James Baldwin to Rachel Carson, Elton John to Bobbi Salvor Menuez - it was a great representation of how variegated the term 'queer icon' really is and should be. I think we often limit our perception of queer icons to people like Lady Gaga, Madonna and David Bowie, and don't really include the often doubly marginalised activists who actually do the work for queer liberation. This book did, and I think that's really to its credit.

The one thing that irked me somewhat was how so many of the bios in this book read a bit like resumés or advertisements. The biographies of historical figures, particularly James Baldwin, were nuanced, insightful and informative; I felt like they gave the reader both an overview of the individuals' contributions to queer culture and their personality in general. However, many of the bios of current queer people, particularly that of Frenchie Davis, were more like press releases than anything else, The writing in these ones came across like marketing copy, and it chafed a little; I don't need to be advertised to when I'm reading a book purportedly for edification or entertainment.

That said, it was an enjoyable little read, and I can absolutely see why they picked that photo of Jujubee for the cover. I kind of want it as a poster to decorate all my good rooms (the rooms my cat favours.)

This was fine. Moderately entertaining, but the write-ups were very surface level and a lot of the cat connections were tenuous at best.

I really enjoyed this book, and love love LOVE the cover! This is a prefect gift book for the cat lover or pop culture lover. Some of the photographs are not the best, but they all kept me interested. Great layout and interesting studies of queer icons and their cats.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Can't really go wrong with having an attractive person and a cute animal on the cover, right?!

I LOVE this book. I seriously want to buy a copy for everyone in my life.
The animals are adorable.
The people are fabulous.
And the photographs are beautiful.

I'll definitely be looking out for other work by this author.

This is a really cool book! First of all... CATS! If you love cats, you will love the photographs. I also learned so much about people I already knew and learned about people I'd never heard of doing incredible work in the world. Though not a traditional coffee table book size, it definitely has the potential to be a beautiful book left out for frequent browsing by you and guests to your home or office. You'll also want to read it cover to cover (not something usually said about a book of photography). I've already alerted my friends to watch for the release of this book in May 2021 to add it to their collections. What an inspiring and fun idea for a book!

#QueerIconsandTheirCats #NetGalley

Thanks to the authors, Chronicle Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review of Queer Icons and Their Cats. While I learned a good amount of background information on each of the people highlighted in this book, I felt that in my mind most of them weren’t really icons per se, but LGBT+ personalities and allies that had cats. The cats seemed to be the least important part of some of these people’s lives. For each celebrity, there is a 1 page bio and for most of them, a somewhat dull photo with a cat. I was expecting more Drag Queens and legends than celebrity personalities and felt a bit disappointed in that sense, but this was still an enjoyable and informative read.

This was a fun and fast read that reminds me of a coffee table book. it gives a lot of information about various queer icons, and shows fun photos of them with cats. I learned about several people I didn't know before, have a few books to add to my reading list, and overall really enjoyed the book.

It also includes some fun facts, books, films and achievements of queer people. One of my favorite facts was that Freddie Mercury liked to call his cats when he was away from home. They also didn't shy away from queer people who had sad histories, which I think is really important when discussing Queer Icons and history. Especially inclding HIV+ queer people.

I will reccomend this book once it's released, and am thinking about buying a copy for one of my queer friends. Overall a short, informative, fun Queer book.

Queer Icons and Their Cats is exactly what it says on the tin. It is a lovely coffee table book that features pictures and mini bios of Queer Icons like Freddie Mercury, Elton John, and Alison Bechdel with their cats.

With a small introduction, the book is laid out in a logical manner -- organized by first name since several entries feature icons that only have one name. It's a light fluffy book that doesn't try to be more that what it is. It's the kind of book you leave open on your coffee table when company comes over. The kind of book you'd give your cat-loving relative as a gift.

It's cute. It's light. It's got pictures of cats.

It gets:

Five Stars

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.

I am mostly pleased that I took advantage of the opportunity to read this book, because not only were there cat pictures (as promised!) but there were so many interesting queer icons profiled in this book. Each icon gets about a brief page of biographical information which also includes their relationship to folks of the feline persuasion (some of these biographies felt more like resumes, to be honest, and were pretty dry, but others were not). Natasi seems to have made an effort to put together a broad cross section of (often intersectional) LGBTQ folks, reaching back more than a century in some instances as well as highlighting contemporary figures.

The photos do not always depict the human subject’s actual pet(s). That was kind of disappointing, actually. Surprisingly, the portraits are not necessarily flattering to human or cat, either, but it is nice to see folks in more candid moments than their official portraiture typically presents. I rather wonder how the photos were selected. (Yes, every image is credited in the back of the book, but I’m not curious enough to compare photographer and subject for each picture, though it is at least possible to do so.) There were, of course, professional photographs as well, or at least ones which were obviously more deliberately staged. These were more flattering, but I think less interesting.

As many nice things as I have to say about the book, this is very much a book to be read over a long period of time, rather than all at once. Reading this all at once was a bit like reading a hagiography, which can be interesting and informative, but also a bit of a grind. It would be a great gift or addition to a library collection, and invites readers to do further research on their own due to the brevity of each icon’s entry (an impulse made easier by an extensive suggested reading section). This is an ideal coffee table book, or a bathroom book (this is not a snub, perfect bathroom books are very hard to find).