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Title details for Poets Square by Courtney Gustafson - Wait list

Poets Square

A Memoir in Thirty Cats

by Courtney Gustafson
ebook
Pre-release: Expected April 29, 2025
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An intimate memoir about the importance of community and care in a world that can feel impossibly broken—and a story about accidentally going viral while tending to a colony of feral cats.
When Courtney Gustafson moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, she didn’t know that the property came with thirty feral cats. Focused only on her own survival—in a new relationship, during a pandemic, with poor mental health and a job that didn’t pay enough—Courtney was reluctant to spend any of her own time or money caring for the wayward animals.
But the cats—their pleading eyes, their ribs showing, the new kittens born in the driveway—didn’t give her a choice.
She had no idea about the grief and hardship of animal rescue, the staggering size of the problem in neighborhoods across the country. And she couldn’t have imagined how that struggle—toward an ethics of care, of individuals trying their best amid spectacularly failing systems—would help pierce a personal darkness she’d wrestled with for much of her life. She also didn’t expect that the TikTok and Instagram accounts she created to share the quirky personalities of the wild but lovable cats, like Monkey, Goldie, Francois, and Sad Boy, would end up saving her home.
Courtney writes toward a vision of connectedness, showing how taking care of the cats reshaped her understanding of empathy, resilience, and the healing power of wholly showing up for something outside yourself. She takes us from the dark alleys where she feeds feral cats to inside the tragically neglected homes where she climbs over piles of trash, and occasionally animals, and then into her own driveway with the cats she loves and must sometimes let go. Compelling and tender, Poets Square is as much about cats as it is about the urgency of care, community, and a little bit of dumb hope.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 29, 2025

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780593727621

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780593727621
      • File size: 2546 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      November 1, 2024

      Bought in a preempt, this memoir from the creator of @PoetsSquareCats on TikTok and Instagram shares Gustafson's story of unexpectedly finding 30 feral cats at her new rental house. Despite all the challenges in her life, she couldn't resist taking care of them, leading to unexpected insights and viral posts. Prepub Alert.

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Kirkus

      March 1, 2025
      A cat lover's chronicle. Cat rescuer Gustafson makes her book debut with a warm memoir about loneliness, love, and her unexpected connection to feral cats in the Tucson neighborhood of Poets Square, where she moved with her boyfriend during the Covid-19 pandemic. At times, tending to 30 howling, mewling, starving cats felt overwhelming: "I was spending a lot of time crying, a lot of time feeling like my heart was too small and too tender, a lot of time wishing I could disengage, wishing I had not been the one to find these cats." Besides feeding them, she took them to be neutered to prevent litters of kittens added to the population--not only around her house, but in other neighborhoods, too. She became known as the cat lady, the person others turned to when they found injured cats, or just too many. Without quite knowing why, she posted adorable photos of the cats on social media; surprising to her, the Instagram site attracted followers and contributions. When she filmed a video about cooking a miniature Thanksgiving dinner for stray cats, the TikTok post went viral. Rescuing cats and working at a food bank, Gustafson discovered that the experiences of being unhoused, friendless, and hungry were not limited to cats. Just as the felines outside her house fought for the food she put out for them, the people waiting hours for food distribution often lashed out in anger at not being able to afford "the most basic of resources" to keep themselves and their families alive. While her cat rescue work has given her "a community, a sense of rootedness" and purpose, it has also given her "an intimate knowledge of suffering, a witnessing," she writes, "I never meant to inherit." Affecting testimony to the need for caring.

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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