Great book for cat lovers and people who love biographies!
It's a short, easy read, and I found it refreshing to see queer lives represented in a more airy, lighthearted perspective than usual! I think it is a great opportunity to introduce queer people, and then readers can search more in depth to anyone they get interested with.
This book has a 1 page biography of a queer person (a mix of some historic people and contemporary people), talking about their life and how they link to the queer community, and OF COURSE talking about the cats (mostly the tiny cats, but there are others!) in their life! Alongside this biography there is one photograph of said icon and accompanying feline.

I love cats and this was a fun look into the lifes of celebrities and their cats. Not the greatest thing I've ever read but definitely perfect for cat lovers.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

“Queer Icons and Their Cats” by Alison Natasi and PJ Natasi is a book celebrating LGTBQIA+ celebrities and their feline companions. This book also serves as a great introduction to LGBTQIA+ history, with the introduction providing a brief overview of related historical figures and human rights movements. I loved that the authors included celebrities of different nationalities and occupations, from singers, to artists, to actors. I just wish there were more photos of the cats! There was only one photo per person, and a few did not have any photos at all. Overall, I loved this book and I would recommend it to everyone, especially fans of cats.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book on NetGalley and have provided an honest review.*

This book is a wonderful celebration of queer icons form the past and present. A short bio about the icon is paired with a photograph of them with their cats. I loved that it wasn’t just regular house cats too, there were a few big cats in there. I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the people in this book so I really learned a lot.

Queer Icons and Their Cats is a stylish and affectionate look at beautiful kitties and their dedicated humans. Due out 1st June 2021 from Chronicle Books, it's 112 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is an illustrated collection of 40 LGBTQ+ icons and the kitties they adore. The chapters are arranged alphabetically and include an array of actors, musicians, artists, writers, and cultural icons alongside their beautiful animal companions (mostly cats, but there are a few canines who are included alongside their feline siblings). The pictures are accompanied by short and informal blurbs about the artists and what they're best known for. The accompanying photos are mostly taken from public archives and aren't "coffee table book" polished... in fact most are quite informal and a number of them appear to be from the subjects' personal collections. Each of the short biographies is accompanied by a photo of the subject and one or more cats.

A number of the subjects are sadly departed; many are still with us. I loved that the authors made the salient and touching point that our cats are one of the most unacknowledged social support networks for LGBTQ+ people.

Four stars. This would make a good selection for gift-giving for cat loving friends and acquaintances.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

QUEER ICONS AND THEIR CATS is a super quick, and very digestible, nonfiction read. Overall, I really enjoyed seeing glimpes of queer people throughout history (and their adorable cats). I was pleasantly surprised by how diverse this book was, and how the authors included in their introduction just how important it is to protect trans women of color. However, I did not enjoy seeing constant references to RuPaul, who is a known transphobe. Especially considering this novel is supposed to be about uplifting Queer voices. I also would have loved to see more fat and disabled queer people. At the end of it all, I highly enjoyed my time reading this and would recommend it to most people. I settled on a 4/5 star rating!

To anyone interested in learning more about significant LGBTQIA+ people and their relationship with their cats, this book is the perfect choice! With fantastic and intimate pictures, I'm pretty sure all the cat lovers out there will also enjoy this one.
I picked it up knowing I would probably like it but I ended up loving it! I read every day a little bit and on each page I fell more in love with the book and all of the people I was reading about. It was an amazing experience and it's probably a great choice for a bedside reading too. Absolutely love and recommend this one!!!

Thank you to the authors, Chronicle Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This stylish coffee table-style book introduced me to some very cool LGBTQ persons (some known to me, some not so much), who happen to like cats. Some have their own cats, some are featured via an interaction with a cat. A short bio of each person is included, although I found some very impersonal - lifted directly from a press kit. However, I admit I was expecting a book that focused on personal stories between known LGBT+ persons and their cats. The variety and diversity of the people featured was great and introduced me to several new faces. Unfortunately, in the ARC I received, a lot of the photos were missing. Those I saw I liked - and the cover is particularly stunning.

This book it literal perfection. I saw Jujubee with one of her cats and couldn't hit "request" fast enough. When I started reading, I fell in love. With every single human and feline friend in this book. It is an absolute joy and definitely a book that we all need in this time and age. A real homage to great queer icons and cats. And both categories deserve all the praise and love. I am so happy someone finally put it in a book.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

Based on the cover of the book I was expecting more content on that level within, but most of the pictures were grainy candid shots of queer icons with a small page long highlight reel bio. I felt a little let down honestly. I wanted more of the high quality glamorous shots like of Jujubee.

It wasn't a complete letdown as I learned about some queer icons that I wasn't aware of.

I read the digital edition of this book, so I'm not sure what the measurements of it are, but it would make a lovely coffee table book. I can definitely picture it at my salon among their magazines and books. If you are looking for a long, serious portrayals of LGBTQ+ icons, this isn't the right book. It's much more for fun and light reading. I say hooray for that! We need books about queer joy, and pictures of queer icons plus cats is a good start.

A mini-bio accompanies each portrait, and through this book I learned about some really intriguing icons I didn't know about before now, namely Mimi Simic, Lynn Conway, and Ophelia Pastrana. Several of my favorites appeared, as well, like Jes Tom, Freddie Mercury, and Tig Notaro. I do wish it was longer and included more of my favs, like Megan Rapinoe, Janelle Monae, Tove Jansson, and Gillian Anderson, but there's no way a book could ever really cover all the queer icons in the world, or their cats.

This book would make a great gift for every cat lover and LGBTQ+ activist in your life, and there's probably a good amount of overlap there (as the book suggests). It'll be coming out right before pride month, so look for it at your local bookstore displays.

I was provided a digital arc through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book, the photography used in this book was amazing and was clearly well researched. It was great to read more about these queer icons and you got a sense of how much they love their cats.

This collection of photographs is very cool. I loved seeing photos of these queer icons and their beloved felines.
The blurbs about each person were relatively short, but informative. They offered just enough information to be intriguing- I found myself wanting to read more about several of the individuals included.
If you are interested in LGBTQIA issues, learning more about some pretty awesome people, or you just want to see some adorable pictures of people with cats, check out Queer Icons and their Cats.

Queer Icons and their Cats will be released May 4, 2021.

I received an advanced review copy for free via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is a super fun and playful book. When I requested to read this one I honestly thought it was going to just be a bunch of pictures with short captions, and honestly that would have been good too, but what we got instead was great.

Each photo of a queer person and their cat(s) was accompanied by a few paragraphs about them. I found these descriptions very interesting and I loved that they included well known icons (such as Elton John or Freddie Mercury) - alongside other talented but lesser known folx such as drag performer Jujubee. Everyone in this book is certainly and icon in their own right, and this is a lovely book that would be a great conversation piece if placed on the coffee table.

Queer folx. Cats. What more do I need in a cool picture/mini bio book? Uhm, nothing, loved this book

Major thank you to the publisher for this review copy!

This was a treat. A beautiful book full of short portraits of LGBTQIA+ icons and their relationships with pets, specifically cats. I loved the formating of this book and the introduction gave more insight into the authors' intentions and the direction of this book, which was very informative. I'd recommend this book to anybody.

This is a great book to flip through. It has pages of beautiful photos of queer musicians, designers, activists, actors, authors and entertainers with their furry feline friends, as well as short bios outlining the person's life, career and achievements. There's a lot of familiar faces and also quite a few I hadn't known were queer or hadn't heard of. Definitely a very interesting read!

I received an eARC from NetGalley for the purposes of this review.

What a wonderful way of introducing readers to a variety of queer icons! I loved the fact that each person was pictures with a cat - I thought this was a great bridge and something that I think many people can bond over: the fact that cats are good companions.

I could easily see this book as a permanent fixture on someone’s coffee table (or even just intentionally left out when straight family members come to visit). Tons of fun and a great education piece for snippets of queer history.

I love Queers. I love Icons. I love Cats. I love this book!

“Queer Icons and their Cats” is a wonderful collection of modern and vintage pictures of people with their cats. Sounds simple, right? On one level, it is. Get a bunch of celebrities pictured with their feline friends and voila: Coffee Table Book! Yet on a different level, collecting and curating these photographs had to have been a laborious task. As cited in the Introduction, there is a great crossover between cat culture and queer culture.

The short biographies of the humans, as well as some of the cats, are informative as well as entertaining. I knew most of the icons, but there were several I did not. I was happy to increase my knowledge of the drag and trans scenes. There are many first-person quotes and accounts included, some by the subjects themselves, which is a harbinger of good research. Apart from Rachel Carson, all the icons included self-identified as queer during their lifetimes.

I would like to have seen captions on the pictures but that is a quibble and not a critique. There are depictions of cheetahs included in this album which I find problematic, even though one is vintage and another purportedly taken at a zoo. Apart from that, all the felines included seem happy or at least consented to be photographed and become the centers of attention they are.

If you love cats and queers, you will love this book too.

Queer icons. Plus cats. What more could you possibly need? This book features bios of some of the greatest LGBTQ icons and their adorable feline friends. Elton John. Dusty Springfield, Freddy Mercury, Sylvia Rivera - all of them proud cat lovers because cats are the best. If you're a fan of queer icons AND cats, or just a fan of awesome people who love their cats, then you're definitely going to want to check out this book.