REVIEW: Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson by Courtney Gustafson

Reviewed by Emily Webber

In 2021, Courtney Gustafson prepared a miniature Thanksgiving meal for feral cats living outside her house and shared it on social media. It’s no surprise the video went viral. I remember seeing it and immediately sharing it with my best friend, a fellow cat lover. Each cat was served a complete meal on fancy plates. As often happens on social media, I watched the thirty-second video and felt a brief wave of joy before moving on to something else.

I never looked deeper into Gustafson’s other posts at that time. But I’m very glad that years later, we have her thought-provoking and introspective memoir, Poet’s Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats (Crown; April 2025). The story behind the viral video explores how we care for others and ourselves, the importance of building community, and how to find ways to help each other.

Gustafson moves into a rental house in Poets Square, Arizona, with her partner, Tim. On the first night, she sleeps there alone because he’s still packing up his place. Eager for a new beginning, she’s oblivious to what’s coming, except that she and her dog hear noises all night. It’s dark and an unfamiliar place, so she doesn’t go out until morning to investigate.

“In daylight I followed the paw prints around the house, trying to figure out where a cat might have comes from or gone, but there were too many prints to make sense of. I didn’t mention it to Tim, even after a few weeks had passed and he was sleeping in our new bedroom with me. Every night, I could hear the cat—two cats? maybe three cats?—prancing across the roof, leaping from the fence, scurrying across the driveway.”

There weren’t just a few cats but thirty in all, and when she started to see them more closely, she realized how much they were suffering, barely surviving even. Gustafson describes all-night howling, injuries, and female cats with almost constant litters. Dull coats with ribs sticking through were how all the cats looked. She begins cataloging and counting them each day to make sure they are all safe. She and Tim don’t park their cars under the carport so the cats can escape the rain. She starts putting out blankets, toys, and whatever food she can, but she’s overwhelmed and doesn’t have the resources or knowledge to care for them properly.

Through the cats and her own story, Gustafson illustrates how the system fails animals and us. She’s done everything right for herself—graduated from college and grad school, maintained a steady job and worked overtime, lived frugally—and yet most of the time she lives paycheck to paycheck with increasing medical bills. The thing that eventually brings her financial stability and allows her not only to care for the cats properly but also to buy the house she and Tim are renting is gaining internet fame.

Once Gustafson has more resources, she can feed the cats on a regular schedule and get them spayed and neutered, along with any other veterinary care. As they get healthier, their personalities shine, and she earns the trust of even the most feral of them. After a year of caring for the cats, she realizes how easy it had been to feel like a good person by expressing concern without being forced to do anything about it, because she was far removed from the situation. Now, with it in front of her, she had to think differently: “I would start to think about the difference between I don’t want them to suffer and I don’t want to SEE them suffer.”

Then, as she became more comfortable with what needed to be done to care for the cats, she went into other neighborhoods to help the cats. Something unexpected happens within her because she has a clear purpose.

“At some point my repeated exposure to these kinds of situations had erased whatever social anxiety I had once had. There was no point in feeling anxious: there was a cat who needed help, and there was me, and whatever other circumstances existed would be condensed to nothing as I closed the space between us.”

In this way, she also learns more about the vulnerable people in her community and the complexities of not only caring for the cats but also helping people. Gustafson sees firsthand how much harder it is for people to have compassion for others. Unlike cats, people come with baggage; they aren’t always grateful like people expect, and they make bad decisions. Yet she builds friendships in the community she never thought she would, both with fellow cat lovers and with those in at-risk situations she might have also found herself in.

You’ll fall in love with each of these cats, whether you’re a cat lover or not. Gustafson has a talent for bringing out each cat’s unique personality. Equally compelling and insightful is how caring for the cats gives Gustafson a sense of purpose and belonging in her community, rooted in genuine care for both humans and cats. “There is suffering and pain, there is care and affection, there are bright thriving spots of hope in the world,” Gustafson says, and she’s right—she’s the kind of influencer we need to listen to closely.