A stunningly lovely and profound meditation on love, grief, uncertainty, and the necessity of "divesting from fantasy." Rebecca van Laer broadens the boundaries of the Object Lessons series, turning object into subject and providing a lesson in no less than the inevitability of mortality. This book is philosophical and deeply personal, with a light heart and dark humor. It will stay with me.

I’ve been aware of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series for years, but this is the first time I’ve actually read one of the titles. I have no idea how representative it is, but I can say that I was impressed. Van Laer is a fine writer who skillfully mixes memoir elements with information and reflection on domestic felines. For the latter two components, she draws on works by philosopher John Gray, evolutionary biologist Jonathan Losos (who has a particular interest in cats), and professor emerita of English Katherine M. Rogers—among others. Also included are the views of Jonathan Franzen (a passionate birder and advocate for songbird conservation) and some stories about Doris Lessing and the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, two cat lovers who dealt with explosive overpopulations of friendly cats. Believe me, those accounts are distressing to read.

I particularly enjoyed the commentary on John Gray’s Feline Philosophy in which he outlines what we humans can learn from these animals in order to experience less suffering and greater equanimity. Like van Laer, I’m skeptical about Gray’s basic assumption that cats are essentially happy. I’ve seen cats demonstrate behaviours comparable those of traumatized humans. (I’ve also seen them slowly learn to trust.) Some are very sensitive to raised voices, any sign of distress in the people they live with, and changes in routine. One of our cats displayed ongoing agitation when her close feline friend died.

It should be noted that this is not a book about cute, fluffy “fur babies”. The author goes the extra mile to counterbalance her love for these companion animals with hard facts about their impact on wildlife, their tendency to breed uncontrollably, and the need to set limits on them. She sharply observes: “If dogs are our servants, cats are our shadows. On ships, across continents, in cities and in suburbs, trash dumps and nature preserves, they have followed us and our refuse, continuing our work of domination. We have fragmented the natural world; they have hunted in the cracks we create.” And, she concludes, they are perhaps “not so much domesticated by humans as accessory to us—not in the sense of a purse, but of a crime.” She is firm in her view that we can’t allow cats to have litter after litter, eat whatever they want, and—in short—“take over the world”; however, she’s also realistic about humans who don’t demonstrate much interest in their own negative impacts on the environment, never mind conscientiously managing cats.

The relationship between humans and cats has always been a somewhat uneasy one. The author comments that on average, humans do not like felines as much as canines. It’s not easy for people to admit to a dislike of dogs, a social species generally regarded as loyal and friendly, but folks often make no bones about their distaste for cats. Cats don’t obey or love enough; they’re independent, and they challenge you with their stares. They’re also more likely than dogs to be surrendered to shelters when a family member develops an allergy to their fur, even though a yearlong study from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed that there are comparable levels of sensitization to cat and dog allergens within the US population.

It’s common knowledge that cats were domesticated in Egypt, where they were valued for their ability to provide rodent control and eventually made it into the pantheon of that ancient civilization; however, the author notes that there’s a fairly long history of humans hating them in the time since. In medieval Europe, they were associated with the Devil. Suspected of being witches’ familiars, they were often punished alongside the persecuted women, even burned at the stake with them. Afterwards, their negative association with women continued. “The idea of the crazy cat lady,” the author writes, “is alive and well in certain circles—the belief that the worst possible fate is to fail to reproduce and end up surrounded by nonhuman creatures you love.”

Van Laer provides a few telling details about the place of cats in her difficult childhood. She spent her earliest years in the company of two cats—the elderly Anastasia and a young Siamese named Zoda—in a Manhattan apartment. The family then relocated to Georgia, with Zoda “shepherding” the introverted Rebecca through the upsetting transition from urban to rural living. It was hard for her to adjust to Southern culture in general, and to make friends or even speak at school in particular. Soon enough, her tense and chaotic family began to unravel. Her dad was often away on business, and Rebecca’s mother appears to have had difficulty managing the house and the children. When her parents actually were together, they were embroiled in their own problems.

Barely able to control themselves, they certainly didn’t attend to Rebecca and her brother or manage the “endless parade of cats” they’d taken in over the years. The animals had gone unneutered, unspayed, and largely uncared for. Van Laer describes the situation as hoarding, with all the attendant grief and horror. Some cats vanished, and one, Tigger, was killed, presumably by a local dog. Rebecca’s sorrow at his violent end was dismissed by her mother who felt that the children really just needed to understand that the death of pets was a part of life.

The van Laer parents ultimately divorced, by which time the author never wanted to see her mother again. She chose to move away and live with her dad. Until the divorce occurred, however, she had clearly relied on cats for the solace that had not been provided by her parents.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, van Laer later struggled with anxiety and low spirits as a graduate student. A variety of pharmaceuticals for anxiety and depression were prescribed, but they offered little help. It was only when the author adopted a cat that she began to experience a sense of wellbeing. She named him “Gus”—in memory of the “best” and most beloved of her childhood cats, Augustus, who had sadly vanished—and she vowed to make up for the neglect her earlier animal companions had endured. After a number of failed relationships, she found happiness with a sympathetic partner, Steven, an academic with a cat of his own.

A fair bit of the book tells about the couple’s experiences with their cats Gus and Toby: their move from an apartment to a house, the death of one of the cats in old age, the intense grief that ensued, and their adoption of Milton (a very affectionate tuxedo cat with feline immunodeficiency virus). Van Laer explains how their animal companions have shaped her and Steven’s lives, including the decisions about marriage and whether to have children. She challenges Pope Francis’s disparaging remarks about the selfishness of couples who choose not to have children and give their love to non-human companions. Her response is forceful and well worth reading.

I find it remarkable that so much information and food for thought has been fit into such a compact little book. In addition to what I’ve mentioned above, the author covers feline communication and the unique language each cat develops to communicate with his own humans. There’s also some passing commentary on the following: the shelter system; the controversy over whether cats are really the fine hunters they’re purported to be; cats as political symbols; where the legend of cats’ nine lives may have originated; the health issues of pedigree felines; and FIV—feline immunodeficiency virus.

For me, van Laer’s book was a terrific introduction to the Object Lessons series. Yes, there is sadness here, but there are moments of humour, too, and one is left with lots to think about.

Thank you to Net Galley and Bloomsbury for providing me with a digital advanced reader copy.

This book was an interesting read! Joining the series: Observations, this short story follows the authors experiences with cats. Each chapter was it's own tale and was a quick read. I enjoyed the photos of her cats throughout the book.

This short memoir is an ode to cats and all of the joy and heartbreak they bring their human's. Rebecca van Laer shares her life through the cats that shaped her, and we get to see her battle with difficult life decisions - does she want to have children, or is it just that this is the societal expectation? This is a tender account, full of joy, sadness, and humour, and I found it extremely relatable. I'll definitely be returning to this one in the future.

van Laer grew up with cats—cats and dogs and, really, something of a menagerie. More creatures than humans at times. And van Laer loved the dogs...but cats were her first love.

This is one of Object Lessons—a series of short books exploring ordinary objects. Now, whether cats can be called objects is debatable—I don't really think mammals are objects, so I'm going to go no, but Merriam-Webster is actually pretty vague on the subject, so let's run with it. The structure of the books varies, and for better or for worse I have fallen head over heels in love with the ones that are mostly history and research. What can I say? I'm a nerd. A catless-cat-lady nerd, as it happens, so I was hoping for some catnip for nerds.

"Cat" is largely memoir: an exploration of the cats that have helped to shape van Laer's life, first in childhood and then as an adult. She explores competing stereotypes of cat lovers and dog lovers—and, critically, what she needs in her life to be fulfilled. Numerous cats slink onto and off the page, but she focuses mostly on two: Gus, the cat van Laer brought into her relationship, and Toby, the cat her partner brought in.

"I've heard it said that this is the key difference between pet owners: dog people wish their dogs were people; people wish that they were cats." (loc. 96*)

There's a lot of riffing here, which honestly feels kind of right for cats—I suspect that if cats could talk, many of them would be pretty selective about what they talked about...but a significant proportion would be good at riffing on whatever subject caught their attention. I could have used a bit more citation at times—there's a robust enough selection of references, but when van Laer suggests that people are more likely to return cats to shelters than they are to return dogs (she says this in the context of human allergies to pets, though within the context of the chapter it reads as a more general thing), I took myself down something of a rabbit hole to see what the data said. The short answer is that I still don't know, but one of the studies van Laer cites** mentions the opposite ("lower number of cat returns compared to dogs in study samples"), and one of the studies *that* study cites*** looked at 3,204 dog relinquishments and 2,755 cat relinquishments, suggesting that there are in fact more dog relinquishments than cat relinquishments (in Denmark)...though this does not tell me whether this is proportional to the numbers of dog owners and cat owners, or pet dogs and cat dogs, or dog and cat adoptions, and I don't know if those numbers are generalizable to the US, so actually my research has done very little except prove that I am, in fact, still a nerd. How's that for a riff?

At any rate. This is a nice little memoir for cat lovers—though with the warning that if you have a hard time with discussions of pet deaths (van Laer talks about more than a few of them), this is likely not the book for you. (I'm generally unfazed by that sort of thing, but know yourself and your reading preferences.) I think I'm left wanting an Object Lessons book about animal shelters—to complete the research I didn't finish!

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

** https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9854428/

*** https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7341242/

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

I was intrigued by the concept of the Object Lessons series, which I had not heard of previously. Obviously, I was quite excited to read Cat, though unsure what to expect. I absolutely loved van Laer's writing. Despite (maybe) crying and/or cursing her during the particularly sad and tragic bits, I feel like van Laer perfectly captured the cat-person relationship, and the mysterious (and marvelous) creature that is the cat. I also appreciated her meditations on pet loss and a child-free life. Cat people will enjoy this.

Cat is Van Laer's personal and academic exploration of cats, some of which can resonate with the reader.
It is not your usual book on cats - it is not a mini guide, not a history book, not a summary.
It is a meditation on cats. Though, I wish there were content warnings.

I’m not sure what I expected from this one but it wasn’t this.

A short book but littered with tales of animal cruelty, neglect and murder. Also very heavily focused on the author and various life events. I would have liked far more stories or interesting information about cats. Overall a very disappointing read.

Thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for the ARC.

A beautifully written book about cats by an absolute cat lover. Much of what the author was saying resonated with me, being a cat obsessive myself, and I throughly enjoyed this. My only frown was towards the end when cat cruelty was discussed. It burst my bubble. Remove it altogether, we don’t need to read about these things.

The Object Lessons books are " a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things." But within that remit, the authors have a lot of flexibility. Most of the time they are a history of engineering, popularization or development of the named object. Other times, the named object is more so a framing device for the author to spin off into oddly tangential journeys of self discovery (see Hotel). In other words, results can sometimes be mixed. Fortunately, Cat by Rebecca van Laer, balances the personal with the informational.

Through 9 chapters, van Laer frames the narrative with her own life, begining from chapter 1 with the family moving to a larger house, not for a dog and kids, but so the cats (Gus and Toby) can have better windows to enjoy. While sharing her own life story, the prominent role cats have played in it, van Laer also looks back to the domestication of cats, or perhaps the domestication of humans for the pleasure of cats. Chapters explored pop culture, the life cycle of cats, the results of research studies and many other cat related topics.

Recommended to readers of the Object Lessons Series, Cat enthusiasts or readers of contemporary life.

I've been trying to find books about cats for a while and have noticed how most of them tend to be quite sad. So when I saw this one up to be requested, I wondered if it'd fall into that sad themes category as well. And the answer is yes but also no. In the same way cats are complex, we cat lovers are as well. And that's reflected in these books.
And the thing that is important to mention early on in the review, for those who won't finish reading it, is trigger warnings. As a fan of horror, I've watched so many movies in which people are murdered in the most horrible ways one can imagine. But harm a dog or a cat and, even if it's clearly fiction, and people walk out of that movie. We see those animals as vulnerable and can't see or read about them being hurt. I'm not someone who looks at trigger warnings (but I appreciate when they're posted for others who do need to check that before reading) and yet if I hear there's a depiction of animal abuse, I'm not reading that book. So I feel I need to point out this book includes mentions of cats dying and being hurt. Not in an exploitative way, though. But it was hard to read anyway so it's worth mentioning. Reading about the grief of losing a cat when you've been through that before is not easy.
This is a short book but not one to read in one sitting, in my opinion. While reading, I often stopped to think about what I just read or to reread a particular section. It's written in a way that encourages us to think, to truly absorb the conclusions the author reaches and compare them to how we see those same things. There's a lot in this book that can start conversations with fellow animal lovers. I really enjoyed the cats vs dogs section. My friend group is divided between cat lovers and dog lovers. And while the cat lovers like dogs too (me being the exception but just because I'm afraid of dogs), the dog lovers tend to dislike cats. It's definitely worth looking at the why and the author makes good points that can explain this dynamic. We look at personality traits that can play a big part in the choice, for example. We often limit it to dog lovers being people who don't accept rejection easily or, taking things a bit further, who struggle with the concept of consent. There is a superiority complex that cat lovers have but I had never seen it pointed out the way this author did. Obviously, this doesn't apply to every single person who has a cat or a dog but it explains a very real and obvious dynamic too well. Some might feel ashamed of realising that, but I embrace it. I've always been aware of my superiority complex.
There is some information in this book about cats that I found very interesting. I was a history major for a minute and learned about how humans domesticated animals, But it was a brief mention and we focused mostly on wolves/dogs. So learning about the feline side of this process was fun. Plus all the information about the behaviour of cats, which is always fascinating. They're such a mystery but also so simple at the same time.
Since this book talks about society and its relationship with cats, not mentioning the "crazy cat lady" stereotype would have been a crime. I enjoyed how it was linked to a woman's choice to have children. Why do we see a cat as a "replacement" for a child? What does that mean? Is it normal to say your cat is your son or daughter? Even if it's as a joke. Now that more and more women (me included) decide not to have children, this is a great topic. The author focused more on her own personal choice, which is fine since this book is also marketed as a memoir. But I'd have loved for that topic to be expanded a bit more.
I adored the few photos we got of the author's cats. One of them looked so much like my cat Maddie. And I overall enjoyed the themes covered in the book.
It's mostly cat lovers who will look at the cover and title and want to read the book. But I think everyone can benefit from reading it and thinking about these themes.

Object Lessons is such a cool series concept and this book was a quick, entertaining little memoir/non-fic hybrid!

I loved how van Laer used her own story to shape her reflections on capitalism, job culture, living childfree, and the ethics of 'ownership' while giving us history and context on the cat:human relationship through domesticity. I could relate so well to van Laer as a fellow burned out, childfree human. Her writing invited me into her world and, despite the short length, I felt like I knew her and her cats so well by the end. I was really surprised at the range of emotions I felt while reading this book!

There are a few grisly descriptions of animal death and cruelty, but because I went into this expecting a non-fic, it didn't feel as gratuitous as it can when included in memoirs. It's hard to quantify, but it just hit different: van Laer celebrates cats but doesn't shy away from the unpleasant parts of pet guardianship the harmful role of cats in problems like ecosystem destruction. The good, the bad, and the ugly - I thought van Laer's approach was balanced: capturing the full picture without sensationalism.

This was a great way to spend an afternoon. When I finished my first read through, I started again. Occasionally, I re-read books, but I've never read anything again straight after finishing! This was just so unlike anything I've ever read before and a really worthwhile read! 😻

A lovely book which will enchant cat lovers and intrigue those who are yet to experience the joy of knowing a cat. The author dips in and out of personal experiences and historical reflections to create a true homage to cats. It’s a short read, but really well written and thoroughly enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
Cat lovers will enjoy this short book. There's a bit of history and philosophy to it and of course, stories about the author's cats. I love that she adopts adult cats instead of kittens. And I can relate to not wanting children. I much prefer my dogs and cat.

A meditation on a life with cats as one's partner or child instead of a human partner or child. This is a book for cat lovers who will understand the intensity of the love and devotion to a cat, along with the grief of losing a cat or fear of its disappearance or death. Interspersed are factual reflections on how cats came to be domesticated, their past as feral, and how their personalities have changed as they have changed from necessities in the enviornment to beloved household members.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

Welcome to Rebecca’s world of cats. She demystifies the myths of cats that lead to mistreatment and feral cat colonies. Removing the stigma that cats are mean with personal stories about her own cats. The readers navigate grief with Rebecca through pet loss and raising more cats. This cat lady is not an angry lady sitting in a bath robe, but a woman who has fallen in love with the way cats interact with the world with affection.

Think about the way we interact with animals and cats. Our relationship with pets are sometimes taken for granted. Rebecca looks at people objectively based in how they miscategorize cats. She also comments on how people tend to and take cat allergies more aggressively than dog allergies.

These little tidbits of information with personal stories was profound within these short pages. The only thing I wanted more of was more historical facts related to domesticating cats. Purrfectly delectable read here. Thank you Netgalley and Bloomsbury Academic for an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review!