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_micah_'s review against another edition
5.0
TEN STARS, CHANGED MY LIFE FOR THE BETTER, MAYBE EVEN TO THE BEST IT COULD BE
woowottreads's review against another edition
4.0
Hah, this is basically my life, this book. But times four, and in an apartment instead of a house. This book is adorable and pretty much a must for cat people.
book_darner's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bookcrazylady45's review against another edition
4.0
One of my favourite books about animals. A gentle, humorous story with no trauma written from the point of view of the cat. I enjoyed it very much.
Reread 2018 - still much loved, especially since this year I adopted a cat.
Reread 2018 - still much loved, especially since this year I adopted a cat.
shelley_pearson's review against another edition
5.0
I like a lot of things about this book:
1. Narrated by a cat who makes up songs and poems and gives himself capitalized names like Cat About Town.
2. He decides to take housekeepers, so he moves in with two old maids named Brusque Voice and Gentle Voice. (secret lesbians <3)
3. Every day he sits in the window to get the news by watching all the neighborhood animals pass by.
4. He really likes proving that he's the toughest cat in the neighborhood until the housekeepers take him to get fixed and then he declares himself a Cat for Peace and makes a song about it.
5. Short enough to read on two max rides!
1. Narrated by a cat who makes up songs and poems and gives himself capitalized names like Cat About Town.
2. He decides to take housekeepers, so he moves in with two old maids named Brusque Voice and Gentle Voice. (secret lesbians <3)
3. Every day he sits in the window to get the news by watching all the neighborhood animals pass by.
4. He really likes proving that he's the toughest cat in the neighborhood until the housekeepers take him to get fixed and then he declares himself a Cat for Peace and makes a song about it.
5. Short enough to read on two max rides!
tinker_kat's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
pussreboots's review against another edition
5.0
is a delightful book by a person who has clearly lived with cats. The 10 cat commandments are a cute way to outline basic cat behavior. I especially liked watching the cat protagonist's progression from Cat About Town to Gentleman Cat to Gentle Cat to finally Fur Person.
This book's cat, later named Tom Jones, reminds me a great deal of one of my grandmother's cats, a young stray we named Oliver (for Oliver Twist). He too went through the transformations outlined in the this book and after my grandmother's death spent the remainder of his years as the very dapper cat of a family who had rented my grandmother's house. He followed them back to Sunnyvale from San Diego where he lived for another couple of years.
This book's cat, later named Tom Jones, reminds me a great deal of one of my grandmother's cats, a young stray we named Oliver (for Oliver Twist). He too went through the transformations outlined in the this book and after my grandmother's death spent the remainder of his years as the very dapper cat of a family who had rented my grandmother's house. He followed them back to Sunnyvale from San Diego where he lived for another couple of years.
bparkinson31's review against another edition
4.0
A touching, respectable, slightly humorous look into what might go on in the minds of our beloved cats. Makes me miss my fur person.
gregy's review against another edition
4.0
I picked up this book at a library sale on a whim, because I love cats and I knew just a smidge about May Sarton, but what I heard is that she was an East Coast analogue to Elsa Gidlow--a woman who lived a long openly gay life across the 20th century and whom younger woman gathered around for feminist and lesbian inspiration in the 1970s and 1980s. There's a picture of Sarton on the back of the book that couldn't be better. I looked at it all the time whenever my interest flagged and it spurred me to keep reading. You'll have to see it for yourself!
The book is a charming, short tale about a cat named Tom Jones, and it is told in third-person limited point of view focusing on the cat's thoughts. The cat begins as a wild Cat-About-Town, but then decides its time to find a housekeeper, so he finds a great, bookish butch-femme couple, modeled on Sarton and her partner of course. The cat then wrestles with the transition from independent street life to entering into a domestic relationship with humans. It's really sweet.
The scenario struck me as a bit precious at first, but with each chapter I got more and more into it. Also, the cat starts out as a roving tomcat, but then he gets neutered in Chapter 8--spoiler alert!--and starts to behave much more like our cat Holiday. Sarton's explanations for why Tom Jones behaves in the ways he does are adorable and often really insightful. She distills and presents the code by which cats live, and it indeed accounts for virtually all of their behaviors and actions. Our cat is a lady with two gay dads, so we're sort of the gender inverse of the situation in the book. I'm not sure that Holiday's life story would mirror Tom Jones's exactly, but it's fun to think about. I read a few of the chapters to Holiday one night and she seemed to grow extra-affection toward me as I read them. She even licked my nose! So there must be something magical about the book.
I'm definitely going to read more Sarton soon. Next on my list is Plant Dreaming Deep. Can't wait!
The book is a charming, short tale about a cat named Tom Jones, and it is told in third-person limited point of view focusing on the cat's thoughts. The cat begins as a wild Cat-About-Town, but then decides its time to find a housekeeper, so he finds a great, bookish butch-femme couple, modeled on Sarton and her partner of course. The cat then wrestles with the transition from independent street life to entering into a domestic relationship with humans. It's really sweet.
The scenario struck me as a bit precious at first, but with each chapter I got more and more into it. Also, the cat starts out as a roving tomcat, but then he gets neutered in Chapter 8--spoiler alert!--and starts to behave much more like our cat Holiday. Sarton's explanations for why Tom Jones behaves in the ways he does are adorable and often really insightful. She distills and presents the code by which cats live, and it indeed accounts for virtually all of their behaviors and actions. Our cat is a lady with two gay dads, so we're sort of the gender inverse of the situation in the book. I'm not sure that Holiday's life story would mirror Tom Jones's exactly, but it's fun to think about. I read a few of the chapters to Holiday one night and she seemed to grow extra-affection toward me as I read them. She even licked my nose! So there must be something magical about the book.
I'm definitely going to read more Sarton soon. Next on my list is Plant Dreaming Deep. Can't wait!
aimee70807's review against another edition
4.0
If I try to describe this book, it will sounds cutesy. But it really wasn't. A fun glimpse into the mind of a fictional cat (and short enough that you don't get sick of it.)
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