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Open Throat
A lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion narrates this star-making fever dream of a novel.
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting a nearby homeless encampment, observing hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience.
When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call “ellay.� As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate Do they want to eat a person, or become one?
Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world recounted by a lovable mountain lion. Feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings the mythic to life.
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting a nearby homeless encampment, observing hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience.
When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call “ellay.� As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate Do they want to eat a person, or become one?
Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world recounted by a lovable mountain lion. Feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings the mythic to life.
176 pages, Paperback
First published June 6, 2023
554 people are currently reading
39.6k people want to read
About the author
Henry Hoke
7books288followersHenry Hoke is an editor at The Offing and the author of five books, most recently the novel Open Throat (MCDxFSG / Picador), and the memoir Sticker (Bloomsbury).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,820 reviews
July 8, 2023
I'm a fan of short, unassuming novels like this one. Open Throat follows a mountain lion who lives along the Brush Canyon trail in Los Angeles. The entire story is told from the lion's perspective, as it eavesdrops on hikers, recounts its own story, and goes on the move after disaster strikes. Although slight, the story covers quite a bit of terrain, from California's acute housing crisis to the treatment of wildlife to climate change. The book is political, both in terms of alignment but also in its call to action. There are two things that elevate this above a clever but forgettable story. The first is the playful syntax - spelling is irregular and punctuation largely absent - which is fitting for a story told by an animal. But the second is I think more interesting: the decision to label the mountain lion as queer. There's little in the text to indicate the lion's sexual orientation or identity, whatever that may be. But I don't think Hoke is using the word queer in that sense. Rather than a commentary on the lion, I read it instead as a commentary on the meaning of queerness. The lion is free and yet confined, allowed to live as long as it doesn't transgress. It's labeled as a threat, even though it is the one being hunted. There's more to unpack with this, and even if Open Throat doesn't do a lot of unpacking, it illustrates these ideas in a fresh way. Many thanks to the US publisher, MCD/FSG, for making a digital ARC available via Netgalley.
November 3, 2024
�I feel more like a person than ever because I’m starting to hate myself.�
I’m a big fan of cats, and the big cat narrating Open Throat by Henry Hoke has certainly stolen my heart. Examining the blurred boundary between human and animal, Hoke’s heartfelt and often hilarious novella follows the stream-of-consciousness of a queer mountain lion based on P-22, a real-life mountain lion who crossed the 405 and the 101 freeways to live in Griffith Park. This is a novel that seems like it shouldn’t work, yet it does. And marvelously so, making elements that could quickly trip into cloyingly quirky instead rise up in emotional and satirical glory. Hoke’s sharp yet playful prose comes at us in double-spaced, single lines, reading almost like poetry as the lion navigates complex emotions from hunger and shame to repressed desires and concerns around identity, but their perspective (the lion tells us they are they/them) also gives us a fascinating gaze at human society from the perspective of an outsider on our gross inequalities, narcissisms and ecological terrors. A quick but powerful read, Hoke’s offbeat Open Throat makes the familiar seem strange and the strange so utterly satisfying through the eyes of an unforgettable and tender narrator that, while an animal themselves, explores what it means to be human, themes of domestication, and removal from the wild.
P-22, the “Hollywood Cat�
This is a wild ride. A quick book that could feasibly be finished in a single evening, Open Throat’s unconventionality manages to pull a wide range of emotions and insights through the narrative while keeping the reader in rapt attention. While we never learn the name of our feline narrator because �it’s not made of noises a person can make,� we are treated to a deep investigation into their emotional state and concerns for society. I was delighted to learn how much of this story comes from real events about P-22, to whom this book is dedicated and inspired by (Hoke by the song , which reminded him of P-22). Its a similar feeling to when I’m reading and think ‘that is an oddly specific detail� only to find it is entirely true, and the are just as thrilling as the novel such as P-22 or having been the likely culprit in the . In her for P-22, California director for the National Wildlife Foundation Beth Pratt said:
This keys into a major theme of the novella, though as much as the lion makes us think about our humanity, the lion, in turn, feels they are becoming more human. A therapist is �something I want,� for instance, though they also find annoyance in human behaviors. �I don’t trust screens to tell me who I am,� they think upon seeing their reflection in a mirror.
�I want to devour their sound / I have so much language in my brain / and nowhere to put it.�
The narration is made possible by the lion having picked up on human speech, either from the encampment of unhoused people for whom the lion feels an affinity for their shared outsider status or from the people hiking the trails.Sure, this may be a stretch for some but Hoke handles it in such a delightful way with situational irony and malapropisms that defamiliarizes the ordinary into an uncanny landscape where the abstractions of reality are more pronounced for analysis. Learning the language draws them closer to humans and I giggled at aspects such as picking up the word for helicopter but always as �fucking helicopter� due to learning it from a man in tent city, or mistaking the term �scarcity mentality� for �scare city� which becomes an all-too-accurate name for LA.
�I traded old fear for new fear.�
Becoming more human also means processing internal struggles (a theme I’ve quite enjoyed in the Murderbot series). In many ways this story is symbolic of repressed identities and the ways society commodifies everything to take the bite out of it. Watching two men have sex in a cave dredges up bittersweet memories of a “relationship� the lion had with another lion, �the kill sharer,� but also the traumatic memories of being cast out from their lion society by a violent father. �A father to a kitten is an absence,� they reflect, �a grown cat to a father is a threat.� This vague tale of violence and abusive fathers is a familiar queer trope, and Hoke juxtaposes the history of violence with the violence present in human society. And not just the threat of death to cross the freeway—�the long death’—but also violence humans display against their own outsiders such as an act of horrific cruelty towards the unhoused people the lion clings near. �I know what their hands can do and what their hands would do and the violence waiting behind every motion.�
I’ve never eaten a person / but today I might.�
The story also looks at the ways society will take anything raw, wild, or unfamiliar and commoditize (think of how capitalism will often co-opt activism in order to render it as nothing but slogans on t-shirts) or domesticate it, such as the imagery of a wild mountain lion becoming a half-starved, tame and timid creature slinking through the streets of scare city. A lion is a perfect symbol for a book set in hollywood, which is full of icons like the or that take a wild beast and turn it into family friendly marketing. Disney in particular is called out in a surreal scene late in the novel that briefly envisions the lion in full anthropomorphic adaptation walking on two legs and enjoying the rides of Disneyland. There is a bit of irony that in the most notable moments of domestication when a teenage girl takes in the lion, she also pays homage to their wildness, calling them �heckit� (the mythological associated with ideas of transition) and refers to them as a goddess.
�If you feel alone in the world / find someone to worship you�
Though for all the ways the lion sees humans as perpetuating many of the world’s ills, there is also that affinity and tenderness many of them. Particularly the outcasts. Though, as we see in the shocking ending, the world of humans and animals are always separate. Open Throat is a reminder of the violence that gets swept under the rug or the other sacrifices made in order for the masses to pretend we live in a polite society and is an excellent edition to the genre of animal perspectives showing us what being human really looks like. I also can’t wrap this up without mentioning that I will forever read novels about pumas in honor of Mike Puma, some of you here may remember him, a best friend that I miss every single day. Love you buddy. Anyways. Offbeat, humorous and often surreal, Open Throat is an endlessly readable tale that reminds us to embrace the wilderness and wild because society can never truly cage it.
4.5/5
Cause they say there is a cougar that roams these parts,
With a terrible engine of wrath for a heart
That she is white and rare and full of all kinds of harm
And stalks the perimeter all day long
But at night lays trembling in my arms.
-Nick Cave,
I’m a big fan of cats, and the big cat narrating Open Throat by Henry Hoke has certainly stolen my heart. Examining the blurred boundary between human and animal, Hoke’s heartfelt and often hilarious novella follows the stream-of-consciousness of a queer mountain lion based on P-22, a real-life mountain lion who crossed the 405 and the 101 freeways to live in Griffith Park. This is a novel that seems like it shouldn’t work, yet it does. And marvelously so, making elements that could quickly trip into cloyingly quirky instead rise up in emotional and satirical glory. Hoke’s sharp yet playful prose comes at us in double-spaced, single lines, reading almost like poetry as the lion navigates complex emotions from hunger and shame to repressed desires and concerns around identity, but their perspective (the lion tells us they are they/them) also gives us a fascinating gaze at human society from the perspective of an outsider on our gross inequalities, narcissisms and ecological terrors. A quick but powerful read, Hoke’s offbeat Open Throat makes the familiar seem strange and the strange so utterly satisfying through the eyes of an unforgettable and tender narrator that, while an animal themselves, explores what it means to be human, themes of domestication, and removal from the wild.
P-22, the “Hollywood Cat�
This is a wild ride. A quick book that could feasibly be finished in a single evening, Open Throat’s unconventionality manages to pull a wide range of emotions and insights through the narrative while keeping the reader in rapt attention. While we never learn the name of our feline narrator because �it’s not made of noises a person can make,� we are treated to a deep investigation into their emotional state and concerns for society. I was delighted to learn how much of this story comes from real events about P-22, to whom this book is dedicated and inspired by (Hoke by the song , which reminded him of P-22). Its a similar feeling to when I’m reading and think ‘that is an oddly specific detail� only to find it is entirely true, and the are just as thrilling as the novel such as P-22 or having been the likely culprit in the . In her for P-22, California director for the National Wildlife Foundation Beth Pratt said:
�He changed us…He made us more human, made us connect more to that wild place in ourselves. We are part of nature and he reminded us of that.�
This keys into a major theme of the novella, though as much as the lion makes us think about our humanity, the lion, in turn, feels they are becoming more human. A therapist is �something I want,� for instance, though they also find annoyance in human behaviors. �I don’t trust screens to tell me who I am,� they think upon seeing their reflection in a mirror.
�I want to devour their sound / I have so much language in my brain / and nowhere to put it.�
The narration is made possible by the lion having picked up on human speech, either from the encampment of unhoused people for whom the lion feels an affinity for their shared outsider status or from the people hiking the trails.Sure, this may be a stretch for some but Hoke handles it in such a delightful way with situational irony and malapropisms that defamiliarizes the ordinary into an uncanny landscape where the abstractions of reality are more pronounced for analysis. Learning the language draws them closer to humans and I giggled at aspects such as picking up the word for helicopter but always as �fucking helicopter� due to learning it from a man in tent city, or mistaking the term �scarcity mentality� for �scare city� which becomes an all-too-accurate name for LA.
�I traded old fear for new fear.�
Becoming more human also means processing internal struggles (a theme I’ve quite enjoyed in the Murderbot series). In many ways this story is symbolic of repressed identities and the ways society commodifies everything to take the bite out of it. Watching two men have sex in a cave dredges up bittersweet memories of a “relationship� the lion had with another lion, �the kill sharer,� but also the traumatic memories of being cast out from their lion society by a violent father. �A father to a kitten is an absence,� they reflect, �a grown cat to a father is a threat.� This vague tale of violence and abusive fathers is a familiar queer trope, and Hoke juxtaposes the history of violence with the violence present in human society. And not just the threat of death to cross the freeway—�the long death’—but also violence humans display against their own outsiders such as an act of horrific cruelty towards the unhoused people the lion clings near. �I know what their hands can do and what their hands would do and the violence waiting behind every motion.�
I’ve never eaten a person / but today I might.�
The story also looks at the ways society will take anything raw, wild, or unfamiliar and commoditize (think of how capitalism will often co-opt activism in order to render it as nothing but slogans on t-shirts) or domesticate it, such as the imagery of a wild mountain lion becoming a half-starved, tame and timid creature slinking through the streets of scare city. A lion is a perfect symbol for a book set in hollywood, which is full of icons like the or that take a wild beast and turn it into family friendly marketing. Disney in particular is called out in a surreal scene late in the novel that briefly envisions the lion in full anthropomorphic adaptation walking on two legs and enjoying the rides of Disneyland. There is a bit of irony that in the most notable moments of domestication when a teenage girl takes in the lion, she also pays homage to their wildness, calling them �heckit� (the mythological associated with ideas of transition) and refers to them as a goddess.
�If you feel alone in the world / find someone to worship you�
Though for all the ways the lion sees humans as perpetuating many of the world’s ills, there is also that affinity and tenderness many of them. Particularly the outcasts. Though, as we see in the shocking ending, the world of humans and animals are always separate. Open Throat is a reminder of the violence that gets swept under the rug or the other sacrifices made in order for the masses to pretend we live in a polite society and is an excellent edition to the genre of animal perspectives showing us what being human really looks like. I also can’t wrap this up without mentioning that I will forever read novels about pumas in honor of Mike Puma, some of you here may remember him, a best friend that I miss every single day. Love you buddy. Anyways. Offbeat, humorous and often surreal, Open Throat is an endlessly readable tale that reminds us to embrace the wilderness and wild because society can never truly cage it.
4.5/5
Cause they say there is a cougar that roams these parts,
With a terrible engine of wrath for a heart
That she is white and rare and full of all kinds of harm
And stalks the perimeter all day long
But at night lays trembling in my arms.
-Nick Cave,
June 10, 2023
I haven't read a novel this syntactically innovative since by Rebecca Watson. Here I was invited into the mind of a sentient and gabby mountain lion that's living a bit too close to human populations for me to not be continuously worried about its welfare. I was on this cat's side all the way. The language is so delightful that I happily embraced the core conceit that this cat could understand human speech and could think in words and could tell me its story. This is a cat full of metaphysical questions as well as apex-predator blood-lust. It's trying to make sense of this world. It's trying to survive in a borderland where the wild places for it to hunt and hide have been reduced to patches of thicket around the Hollywood sign. This cat has a lot to say about both the human condition and the sad state of the world’s dwindling wild places, and this novel is witty, innovative, and beautifully in-the-moment.
June 26, 2023
4.5⭐️
I read Open Throat by Henry Hoke twice, listened to it once, and intend to read it again! The author does a commendable job of building a prose poem fever dream-like narrative from the first person limited perspective of an animal untouched by human domesticity, allowing for unbiased and untainted reactions to what it sees and experiences. The audio narration by Pete Cross breathes life into this story.
“I have no idea what it’s like to be a person and to be confronted with a me�
Our unnamed narrator, a queer wild mountain lion who roams the forest area around the Hollywood sign in “ellay�, shares their perspectives on a myriad of topics� survival in the dwindling forests, homelessness, the earthquakes or the “shudders�, their fear of the highway and the habits and conversations of the hikers they see from their hiding place in the thickets. Observant and perceptive, our narrator is often critical of the human condition and habits that impacted his habitat and way of life but also does not lack compassion where it is due.
In this midst of our narrator’s observations are their reflections and memories of family, and past love and we follow our narrator as they leave their hunting grounds after a heinous crime against the homeless encampment in his park, venturing into the city amid the very humans they once observed from a safe distance, ultimately sheltering in the attic of a family home, befriending a young girl - an experience that prompts a dream of “Diznee� ’toward the end of this short novel, building up to an ending that stays with you.
“every person sitting and walking has hands too and I see all their hands and I know what their hands can do and what their hands would do and the violence waiting behind every motion�
Weaving vivid imagery, elements of wonder, tragedy, heartbreak and dry humor and touching upon themes that impact all living beings - human and animals alike, Open Throat by Henry Hoke is an addictive, imaginative and thought-provoking experience that I would not hesitate to recommend.
In the Acknowledgments section, the author dedicates this book to P-22, the wild mountain lion that lived in Griffith Park (circa 2010 till his death in 2022).
I read Open Throat by Henry Hoke twice, listened to it once, and intend to read it again! The author does a commendable job of building a prose poem fever dream-like narrative from the first person limited perspective of an animal untouched by human domesticity, allowing for unbiased and untainted reactions to what it sees and experiences. The audio narration by Pete Cross breathes life into this story.
“I have no idea what it’s like to be a person and to be confronted with a me�
Our unnamed narrator, a queer wild mountain lion who roams the forest area around the Hollywood sign in “ellay�, shares their perspectives on a myriad of topics� survival in the dwindling forests, homelessness, the earthquakes or the “shudders�, their fear of the highway and the habits and conversations of the hikers they see from their hiding place in the thickets. Observant and perceptive, our narrator is often critical of the human condition and habits that impacted his habitat and way of life but also does not lack compassion where it is due.
In this midst of our narrator’s observations are their reflections and memories of family, and past love and we follow our narrator as they leave their hunting grounds after a heinous crime against the homeless encampment in his park, venturing into the city amid the very humans they once observed from a safe distance, ultimately sheltering in the attic of a family home, befriending a young girl - an experience that prompts a dream of “Diznee� ’toward the end of this short novel, building up to an ending that stays with you.
“every person sitting and walking has hands too and I see all their hands and I know what their hands can do and what their hands would do and the violence waiting behind every motion�
Weaving vivid imagery, elements of wonder, tragedy, heartbreak and dry humor and touching upon themes that impact all living beings - human and animals alike, Open Throat by Henry Hoke is an addictive, imaginative and thought-provoking experience that I would not hesitate to recommend.
In the Acknowledgments section, the author dedicates this book to P-22, the wild mountain lion that lived in Griffith Park (circa 2010 till his death in 2022).
August 9, 2024
for such a short novel (i.e., you can probably finish this in an hour or two), open throat is impressive � it’s clever and original, written through the perspective of a mountain lion living in LA, who, despite being more animal than human (though possessing some anthropomorphic qualities) provides valuable insight on the human condition and several issues that plague our world today.
throughout the first half of the novel, our nameless mountain lion frequents a homeless camp. the lion’s treatment of this particular group � compassionate and protective and even a little possessive (“my people�) as the lion seems to identify with them � is in direct contrast to what happens to them at the hands of another human � cruel and malicious and� inhumane. later in the book, the lion, who’s found a sort of home, at least temporarily, looks around at the abundance of space in the room and thinks “of all the other space in this house and in every house on this street and in all of ellay and� how the people of my town could be here too.� hoke’s indictment of the ongoing housing crisis, as well as the juxtaposition between the mountain lion’s sympathetic, concerned view of the displaced and society’s perception of them as unworthy of respect or basic necessities, provides a foundation for the development of the narrative, which starts with “i’ve never eaten a person before� and ends with "i'm only sorry I didn't get to eat all of you.�
in fact, the blurb poses such a question for the mountain lion (do they want to eat a person or become one?) but upon finishing the novel, it seems more a truth that humanity must confront if we want to successfully move forward. we are, in all our complexities and nuances, compelling creatures, and that shows in the lion’s initial fascination of humans, but with such uninhibited power � after all, our intelligence is unrivaled � comes inequality and injustice on all accounts. the lion’s journey throughout LA is proof of this: the lack of rain and dry vegetation that enables the spread of fires points to human induced climate change, the homeless camps that are mere minutes away from proper housing, the animals that are kept in captivity maybe for rehabilitation but it seems entertainment is not out of the question either. and so when our mountain lion is faced with what might have once been a dilemma, the choice is obvious. when fascination with humanity becomes disillusionment and disgust, it isn't really much of a choice at all. why become human when humanity has consistently been the problem? why become human when humanity will bring about the destruction of the world? why become human when we’re awful and selfish and refuse to admit it. or acknowledge it and refuse to do anything about it? why not just eat us instead?
as an LA native, this book hit a little too close to home sometimes. from experience: rain is rare (like you'll see some guy on the sidewalk in flip flops and shorts when it's raining and not bat an eye), wildfires are all too common (neighborhoods are evacuated, schools close temporarily, etc.), you'll find people living in tents on the street in such close proximity to the wealthy. it's a city that represents so perfectly what happens when you abuse power and potential and don't take accountability. it’s a city that's often glamorized, but it shouldn’t be; it’s a city i love and mourn in equal measure.
though i enjoyed parts of this book, as a whole it felt sort of underwhelming. i think hoke does some things really well, as i described above, but it also felt like he was trying to fit a little too much into such a short, concise story. we jumped around from one thing to the next instead of exploring each plot point and social issue in depth. henry hoke is immensely talented though, and i would absolutely recommend this � like most books, i think what you get out of this depends on you as a reader. it didn’t quite work for me, but it definitely has the potential for a certain subset who enjoy literary fiction in all its strangeness and immersive-ness and uniqueness.
throughout the first half of the novel, our nameless mountain lion frequents a homeless camp. the lion’s treatment of this particular group � compassionate and protective and even a little possessive (“my people�) as the lion seems to identify with them � is in direct contrast to what happens to them at the hands of another human � cruel and malicious and� inhumane. later in the book, the lion, who’s found a sort of home, at least temporarily, looks around at the abundance of space in the room and thinks “of all the other space in this house and in every house on this street and in all of ellay and� how the people of my town could be here too.� hoke’s indictment of the ongoing housing crisis, as well as the juxtaposition between the mountain lion’s sympathetic, concerned view of the displaced and society’s perception of them as unworthy of respect or basic necessities, provides a foundation for the development of the narrative, which starts with “i’ve never eaten a person before� and ends with "i'm only sorry I didn't get to eat all of you.�
in fact, the blurb poses such a question for the mountain lion (do they want to eat a person or become one?) but upon finishing the novel, it seems more a truth that humanity must confront if we want to successfully move forward. we are, in all our complexities and nuances, compelling creatures, and that shows in the lion’s initial fascination of humans, but with such uninhibited power � after all, our intelligence is unrivaled � comes inequality and injustice on all accounts. the lion’s journey throughout LA is proof of this: the lack of rain and dry vegetation that enables the spread of fires points to human induced climate change, the homeless camps that are mere minutes away from proper housing, the animals that are kept in captivity maybe for rehabilitation but it seems entertainment is not out of the question either. and so when our mountain lion is faced with what might have once been a dilemma, the choice is obvious. when fascination with humanity becomes disillusionment and disgust, it isn't really much of a choice at all. why become human when humanity has consistently been the problem? why become human when humanity will bring about the destruction of the world? why become human when we’re awful and selfish and refuse to admit it. or acknowledge it and refuse to do anything about it? why not just eat us instead?
as an LA native, this book hit a little too close to home sometimes. from experience: rain is rare (like you'll see some guy on the sidewalk in flip flops and shorts when it's raining and not bat an eye), wildfires are all too common (neighborhoods are evacuated, schools close temporarily, etc.), you'll find people living in tents on the street in such close proximity to the wealthy. it's a city that represents so perfectly what happens when you abuse power and potential and don't take accountability. it’s a city that's often glamorized, but it shouldn’t be; it’s a city i love and mourn in equal measure.
though i enjoyed parts of this book, as a whole it felt sort of underwhelming. i think hoke does some things really well, as i described above, but it also felt like he was trying to fit a little too much into such a short, concise story. we jumped around from one thing to the next instead of exploring each plot point and social issue in depth. henry hoke is immensely talented though, and i would absolutely recommend this � like most books, i think what you get out of this depends on you as a reader. it didn’t quite work for me, but it definitely has the potential for a certain subset who enjoy literary fiction in all its strangeness and immersive-ness and uniqueness.
October 24, 2023
This little book about L.A. is gay and sad. It perfectly captures those moments when you want to meow but accidentally roar.
December 21, 2022
fuck yes
June 26, 2023
Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a sly little work of fiction.
At less than 200 pages, it’s more of a novella than a novel, allowing for it to be read in an afternoon. The pages turn easily as its fun, and different, to be in the head of a queer mountain lion.
Which is where the slyness comes in. The prose is basic, expectedly so, since a mountain lion is our narrator, but the simplicity of the writing is deceptive. Because when I first finished reading, my immediate thought was that I wanted more from the lion. I didn’t think the lion said enough, and I wanted greater insight into the human condition from the perspective of an animal bystander.
But then I reflected and soon realized how wrong I was. The lion, not only do they say a fair amount, but they also show us quite a bit as they roam L.A. We learn of their personal story, along with the inner conflict between their animalistic nature and the humanity that tugs at their heart. And we see earthquakes, floods, the current political environment, the homeless epidemic � and yes, the numerous ineptitudes of the human race � all through their wise, sharp eyes.
This lion knows their stuff. What a mind, and what a voice.
My sincerest appreciation to Henry Hoke, MCD, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.
At less than 200 pages, it’s more of a novella than a novel, allowing for it to be read in an afternoon. The pages turn easily as its fun, and different, to be in the head of a queer mountain lion.
Which is where the slyness comes in. The prose is basic, expectedly so, since a mountain lion is our narrator, but the simplicity of the writing is deceptive. Because when I first finished reading, my immediate thought was that I wanted more from the lion. I didn’t think the lion said enough, and I wanted greater insight into the human condition from the perspective of an animal bystander.
But then I reflected and soon realized how wrong I was. The lion, not only do they say a fair amount, but they also show us quite a bit as they roam L.A. We learn of their personal story, along with the inner conflict between their animalistic nature and the humanity that tugs at their heart. And we see earthquakes, floods, the current political environment, the homeless epidemic � and yes, the numerous ineptitudes of the human race � all through their wise, sharp eyes.
This lion knows their stuff. What a mind, and what a voice.
My sincerest appreciation to Henry Hoke, MCD, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.
May 20, 2024
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion.
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. “I have so much language in my brain,� our lion says, “and nowhere to put it.�
When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call “ellay.� As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person, or become one?
In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: From the off, I wasn't sure about this...how did Author Hoke think of a puma being queer?! What kind of twee nonsense is a whole novel told from the point of view, nay, in the voice of, an animal going to be?!
Oh me of little faith.
What dazzles and delights me about this read is the meditations on being and becoming a sentient individual in the shadow of trauma and persecution, being and becoming an existential threat to creatures you're not able quite to emulate but whose world you inhabit. It's never about you, the fear and the anger; it's about what They bring with them into the tiny corner of space They condescend to allow you to roam in so long as you don't transgress Their amorphous, undefined boundaries.
Oh wait...that's pretty much a perfect summation of being queer in the cishet world.
Right there came my happiest moment in this read. I felt so exactly in tune with this puma. I felt so completely free to be in his head, and to enjoy his meditations on what the hell it is humans think they're doing. It's not quite what our lion thinks it is, of course, but he's a savvy old survivor with very keen senses...so he's often Right even when he's factually incorrect.
Of course, I'm tiresomely wedded to certain perceptual filters, and kept jumping a little in my seat when the cat would describe, eg, cars as being metal objects...what's a cat know about metal, my ill-tempered filing elf who lives in my brain rent-free and refuses to come up with words and/or data when I want them but freely kibitzes on minor points of fantasy in excellent reads, wanted to know. The cat who knows about metal should also know what a lighter is, and call it by name. Irritating damned elf needs to get a grip on what its actual job desciption requires.
So no five full stars. If fantasy is to work, it needs to make internal sense and be consistent in its fantastical dimensions...see for a similarly batshit crazy idea that works on this specific level better than Open Throat does.
But don't think for a second I am warning you off this short, concentrated, pithy read. I am not. I am waving my arms at you to get you to join me over here in the scrubby, hot, dry edgeland with this wonderful old cat as his world, never safe, takes on another configuration of threat.
He and I? We're hangin' as we await some kind of ending. Whatever we once thought we were doing, it's no longer what They want us to. And there's a pont in life where the reality of the exercise reveals itself in blinding bright light and inarguable simplicity. It's very much a before-and-after moment in one's life.
“I’m old because I’m not dead.�
The Publisher Says: In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion.
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. “I have so much language in my brain,� our lion says, “and nowhere to put it.�
When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call “ellay.� As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person, or become one?
In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: From the off, I wasn't sure about this...how did Author Hoke think of a puma being queer?! What kind of twee nonsense is a whole novel told from the point of view, nay, in the voice of, an animal going to be?!
Oh me of little faith.
What dazzles and delights me about this read is the meditations on being and becoming a sentient individual in the shadow of trauma and persecution, being and becoming an existential threat to creatures you're not able quite to emulate but whose world you inhabit. It's never about you, the fear and the anger; it's about what They bring with them into the tiny corner of space They condescend to allow you to roam in so long as you don't transgress Their amorphous, undefined boundaries.
Oh wait...that's pretty much a perfect summation of being queer in the cishet world.
Right there came my happiest moment in this read. I felt so exactly in tune with this puma. I felt so completely free to be in his head, and to enjoy his meditations on what the hell it is humans think they're doing. It's not quite what our lion thinks it is, of course, but he's a savvy old survivor with very keen senses...so he's often Right even when he's factually incorrect.
Of course, I'm tiresomely wedded to certain perceptual filters, and kept jumping a little in my seat when the cat would describe, eg, cars as being metal objects...what's a cat know about metal, my ill-tempered filing elf who lives in my brain rent-free and refuses to come up with words and/or data when I want them but freely kibitzes on minor points of fantasy in excellent reads, wanted to know. The cat who knows about metal should also know what a lighter is, and call it by name. Irritating damned elf needs to get a grip on what its actual job desciption requires.
So no five full stars. If fantasy is to work, it needs to make internal sense and be consistent in its fantastical dimensions...see for a similarly batshit crazy idea that works on this specific level better than Open Throat does.
But don't think for a second I am warning you off this short, concentrated, pithy read. I am not. I am waving my arms at you to get you to join me over here in the scrubby, hot, dry edgeland with this wonderful old cat as his world, never safe, takes on another configuration of threat.
He and I? We're hangin' as we await some kind of ending. Whatever we once thought we were doing, it's no longer what They want us to. And there's a pont in life where the reality of the exercise reveals itself in blinding bright light and inarguable simplicity. It's very much a before-and-after moment in one's life.
“I’m old because I’m not dead.�
February 25, 2025
I love a strange little book with a unique narrative!!! viewing the perspective of humanity through the lens of a mountain lion with the sole purpose of surviving... this was beautiful, awakening and deeply moving (would highly highly recommend)
May 31, 2023
Don’t let the fanged narrator of Henry Hoke’s new novel scare you off. Yes, “Open Throat� is about a queer mountain lion, but only in the way “The Metamorphosis� is about a large bug. Give this sinewy prose poem a chance and you’ll fall under the spell of a forlorn voice trapped in the hellscape of modern America.
As fantastical as “Open Throat� sounds, Hoke was inspired by a true tale of feline adventure. Around 2012, a cougar � an actual cougar � was spotted prowling around Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Over the next decade, the 123-pound cat, designated P-22, became Hollywood’s coolest, most elusive celebrity � the subject of chance encounters, branded merchandise and social media posts.
Hobbled by traumatic injuries, P-22 was captured and euthanized in December. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called him an icon and an inspiration. Tickets to his memorial service at L.A.’s Greek Theatre reportedly sold out in hours.
But Hoke’s novel is far removed from that aura of fame and adoration. When we meet the cat, he’s “a secret member of town.� He hasn’t had a proper meal for weeks and can’t remember the last time it rained. He’s thirsty and hungry � and transfixed by what he’s seeing. The park draws all sorts of people looking for refuge or stealth. Through a thicket of branches that camouflage him perfectly, he watches a woman filming an
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
As fantastical as “Open Throat� sounds, Hoke was inspired by a true tale of feline adventure. Around 2012, a cougar � an actual cougar � was spotted prowling around Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Over the next decade, the 123-pound cat, designated P-22, became Hollywood’s coolest, most elusive celebrity � the subject of chance encounters, branded merchandise and social media posts.
Hobbled by traumatic injuries, P-22 was captured and euthanized in December. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called him an icon and an inspiration. Tickets to his memorial service at L.A.’s Greek Theatre reportedly sold out in hours.
But Hoke’s novel is far removed from that aura of fame and adoration. When we meet the cat, he’s “a secret member of town.� He hasn’t had a proper meal for weeks and can’t remember the last time it rained. He’s thirsty and hungry � and transfixed by what he’s seeing. The park draws all sorts of people looking for refuge or stealth. Through a thicket of branches that camouflage him perfectly, he watches a woman filming an
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
January 3, 2025
this was kind of perfect to me omg�. tender, affecting, and the perfect length too. we love you gay little mountain lion..
January 4, 2024
4 stars - WTAF did I just read??? 🙀🙀🙀 This rather quick read is told from the POV of a California Mountain lion!!!, and it was quite the interesting commentary on a great many of our current societal ills, as well as on “ellay�, my former home city, as seen from a rather astute outside observer. This book is seriously trippy 🤯
June 15, 2023
updated review after a reread: open throat captures something poignant about queerness and loneliness and the big feelings with which language cannot contend. this book contains many arresting lines � “a father to a kitten is an absence / a grown cat to a father is a threat� and “i feel more like a person than ever because I’m starting to hate myself�, to quote a couple � that are awfully human considering they come from a queer mountain lion living in the hollywood hills of ellay.
but my favorite thing about this book is the way our non-human narrator interfaces with the world around them, distilling the humans into what we really are: reckless and destructive disciples of our phones and green paper, violent for the sake of being violent. further, henry hoke forces the reader to grapple with humankind’s destructiveness from the eyes of a victim: a creature pushed to the margins simply for the crime of its otherness. it’s a crushing metaphor, but a powerful one.
open throat opens with an epigraph from george eliot: “there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.� this, i think, is the thesis of open throat: that we have created a society and world at odds with its residents, difficult to manuever and scary to inhabit. open throat is a story about empathy: for the animals (including the human ones) impacted by urban development and climate change, for the marginalized, for those struggling to understand their place in a rapidly degrading world. “it’s hard to say how it feels / I’m looking for the words�.
but my favorite thing about this book is the way our non-human narrator interfaces with the world around them, distilling the humans into what we really are: reckless and destructive disciples of our phones and green paper, violent for the sake of being violent. further, henry hoke forces the reader to grapple with humankind’s destructiveness from the eyes of a victim: a creature pushed to the margins simply for the crime of its otherness. it’s a crushing metaphor, but a powerful one.
open throat opens with an epigraph from george eliot: “there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it.� this, i think, is the thesis of open throat: that we have created a society and world at odds with its residents, difficult to manuever and scary to inhabit. open throat is a story about empathy: for the animals (including the human ones) impacted by urban development and climate change, for the marginalized, for those struggling to understand their place in a rapidly degrading world. “it’s hard to say how it feels / I’m looking for the words�.
July 12, 2024
I love my local book club because it definitely encourages me to read books I might normally have missed or not picked up on my own. I had seen this book floating around and even seen it at the library with passing interest, but never taken the leap to pick it up because it's not something that sounds exactly up my alley.
I notoriously HATE animal narrators (at least this one which is one of the worst books I've ever read), and while I like when poets write fiction I prefer prose most of the time over prose poetry. Nevertheless I am committed to my local indie and their monthly selections and read this one—which I'm glad to have finally picked up!
This book is strange, but also not as strange as it might seem? It's told from the point of view of a mountain lion who lives in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, based on the real mountain lion P-22. The story follows the cougar's wanderings and musings about the city, its inhabitants, what it means to be a human or desire to be one, gender, sexuality, and more. It's a free flowing, well written poetic style that I think worked for at least the first half of the story.
I'll avoid spoilers and say for me the pace of the story shifts quite drastically in the second half and that's where it lost me. I didn't feel as interested or connected with the events of the novel, which distracted, for me, from the mind of the character that I thought Hoke developed really well early on.
However, this is such a short book you can definitely read in 1-2 sittings, and potentially even re-read (which I think would be rewarding to see things in a new light after finishing it), that I would still recommend it to people. It's funny, thought-provoking, and while a bit uneven, showcases a strong narrative voice and POV that I think is fresh and exciting in the fiction world. I'll keep an eye out for Hoke's next work!
I notoriously HATE animal narrators (at least this one which is one of the worst books I've ever read), and while I like when poets write fiction I prefer prose most of the time over prose poetry. Nevertheless I am committed to my local indie and their monthly selections and read this one—which I'm glad to have finally picked up!
This book is strange, but also not as strange as it might seem? It's told from the point of view of a mountain lion who lives in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, based on the real mountain lion P-22. The story follows the cougar's wanderings and musings about the city, its inhabitants, what it means to be a human or desire to be one, gender, sexuality, and more. It's a free flowing, well written poetic style that I think worked for at least the first half of the story.
I'll avoid spoilers and say for me the pace of the story shifts quite drastically in the second half and that's where it lost me. I didn't feel as interested or connected with the events of the novel, which distracted, for me, from the mind of the character that I thought Hoke developed really well early on.
However, this is such a short book you can definitely read in 1-2 sittings, and potentially even re-read (which I think would be rewarding to see things in a new light after finishing it), that I would still recommend it to people. It's funny, thought-provoking, and while a bit uneven, showcases a strong narrative voice and POV that I think is fresh and exciting in the fiction world. I'll keep an eye out for Hoke's next work!
September 27, 2023
A unique novella on loneliness and the means by which we decide what is human, what is wild. Through the eyes of our protagonist, a mountain Lion who is both fascinated by and weary of the humans they observe, we see the complexities of gender, identity, and the “human� condition. We see that emotion is something felt by all living things, but is only acknowledged by humans who deem is worthy. It is a heartbreaking look into the weight of sentience, and uncertainties of life, love, and death. Somewhere between funny and heartbreaking, this fresh take on otherness and belonging is wholly endearing and insightful, a reminder to cherish and protect our natural world and its many inhabitants while we still can.
September 30, 2024
I want to give the lion a hug
January 1, 2024
Wow😧 wow😧 wow😧!! Such a beautiful, touching story, based on the life of P-22—a very handsome cougar who lived in Griffith Park in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles. He became "famous" for a National Geographic photograph taken of him with the Hollywood sign in the background. P-22's 23-square-kilometre habitat was the smallest range ever recorded for an adult cougar—so small (by a factor of 31), that the National Parks Service noted it was unlikely he'd ever find a mate there. Perhaps that's why the author took a bit of artistic licence in the book by portraying the cougar as queer.
I LOVED the cougar and loved this book!! It’s quite a short book, and several reviews exist on this page that will outline it very well. But instead of reviewing it, I’d like to just say a few things about cougars and all animals who've been forced to share their homes with humans:
P-22 was a very beautiful, intelligent cougar (aka mountain lion, puma, panther, etc.). He was thought to have been struck by a vehicle while crossing one of LA's freeways. Soon after, he was caught and, sadly, had to be euthanised due to his traumatic injuries. He was just one of millions of animals who have been, and are still being, displaced from their territories—every day and nearly to the point of extinction—by selfish, ignorant humans who care little for anything or anyone but themselves, their money, and their bloody cell phones. So, please, PUT THAT PHONE DOWN and look around! Take a look at the world around you and gain some appreciation for this exquisite planet we've inherited. Take a good, long, hard look at it, because if we continue on the path we're on, it will not be here for long! Please smarten up, pay attention, and grow a heart! In the words of my favourite naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, �We can now destroy or we can cherish, the choice is ours.�
5 “Please... choose-to-cherish� stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐�
I LOVED the cougar and loved this book!! It’s quite a short book, and several reviews exist on this page that will outline it very well. But instead of reviewing it, I’d like to just say a few things about cougars and all animals who've been forced to share their homes with humans:
P-22 was a very beautiful, intelligent cougar (aka mountain lion, puma, panther, etc.). He was thought to have been struck by a vehicle while crossing one of LA's freeways. Soon after, he was caught and, sadly, had to be euthanised due to his traumatic injuries. He was just one of millions of animals who have been, and are still being, displaced from their territories—every day and nearly to the point of extinction—by selfish, ignorant humans who care little for anything or anyone but themselves, their money, and their bloody cell phones. So, please, PUT THAT PHONE DOWN and look around! Take a look at the world around you and gain some appreciation for this exquisite planet we've inherited. Take a good, long, hard look at it, because if we continue on the path we're on, it will not be here for long! Please smarten up, pay attention, and grow a heart! In the words of my favourite naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, �We can now destroy or we can cherish, the choice is ours.�
5 “Please... choose-to-cherish� stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐�
January 8, 2025
this was so viscerally LA. what a wild little book
November 3, 2024
When I first heard of this new novel about a gay cougar (an actual puma / mountain lion / cougar) living in the hills outside Los Angeles, I was oddly excited. I wondered how this gay cougar would express his queerness.
I'm still wondering.
First of all, this is a very short work in terms of actual words. White space on every page surrounds very short fragmentary paragraphs � the thoughts of the cougar. The words are interesting, at least for a while, but the book amounts to a novella at most in terms of the length of time one needs to read the whole thing.
If the marketing machine had just promoted it as the musings of a lonely cougar, I would have found it more interesting. But since they said it was gay, I kept looking for that and was confused.
Perhaps the queer gayness is expressed in the unexpected plot twist (which I won't get into) which removes the text from the realm of "reality" (inasmuch as the thoughts of a cougar are "real") and wanders into the mushy terrain of pure fantasy.
Five stars for the idea, and 5 stars for the novelty of the text, which is quirky and refreshing. All in all it is a brilliant short story. But packaged as a novel and promoted as "queer" left this reader feeling somewhat disappointed.
Expectations are a B*t*h, and they almost ruined this book for me. I blame the marketing department.
I'm still wondering.
First of all, this is a very short work in terms of actual words. White space on every page surrounds very short fragmentary paragraphs � the thoughts of the cougar. The words are interesting, at least for a while, but the book amounts to a novella at most in terms of the length of time one needs to read the whole thing.
If the marketing machine had just promoted it as the musings of a lonely cougar, I would have found it more interesting. But since they said it was gay, I kept looking for that and was confused.
Perhaps the queer gayness is expressed in the unexpected plot twist (which I won't get into) which removes the text from the realm of "reality" (inasmuch as the thoughts of a cougar are "real") and wanders into the mushy terrain of pure fantasy.
Five stars for the idea, and 5 stars for the novelty of the text, which is quirky and refreshing. All in all it is a brilliant short story. But packaged as a novel and promoted as "queer" left this reader feeling somewhat disappointed.
Expectations are a B*t*h, and they almost ruined this book for me. I blame the marketing department.
December 25, 2022
Wry, empathetic, and absolutely captivating—I devoured it in one sitting much as its furry protagonist would any small unlucky critter—this book had me at “queer mountain lion,� then in an unresisted chokehold as we’re soon endeared to said lion’s perspective, full of lonesome heart and unique voice as hidden in the bush or cave they observe and pass internal uproarious comment on passing hikers and gay hook-ups, bushfires and extended “disnee� dream sequences; eavesdrop on phone conversations about therapists, the general “scare city� mindset, the sorry state of “ellay,� whose people keep fortifying their own fearful ignorance about the unarticulable kind intentions of their unacknowledged protector. A succinct and thus the more stunning study in posthumanist empathy, with the unintended happy side-effect of reminding me of a similarly heartwarming story also involving mountain lions from .
December 5, 2023
anthropomorphized wildcat stream of consciousness is basically poetry.
in the midst of wildfire:
▴▴�
i devoured this beautiful novella over the course of a few hours. it's dark and warm and wonderful, brutal and tender. bittersweet, though mostly bitter.
this type of animal-pov narration does project our human lens onto other species, but it also allows us to empathize with them on another level. it's illuminating to see humans through the eyes of a wild animal, lonely and pushed into a landscape so marked by humanity, so threatened by climate disasters. scarcity is scare city.
also, the tender and subtle queering of the book is appreciated. love this gay wildcat.
in the midst of wildfire:
I look down and there are no paws
any sec I could step off a cliff
I think I've always felt this way
the smoke makes it clear
▴▴�
i devoured this beautiful novella over the course of a few hours. it's dark and warm and wonderful, brutal and tender. bittersweet, though mostly bitter.
this type of animal-pov narration does project our human lens onto other species, but it also allows us to empathize with them on another level. it's illuminating to see humans through the eyes of a wild animal, lonely and pushed into a landscape so marked by humanity, so threatened by climate disasters. scarcity is scare city.
also, the tender and subtle queering of the book is appreciated. love this gay wildcat.
on quiet midnights back in the caves i could almost imagine that all the people were gone
canyons cleared of their footsteps and voices and cars
the long deaths standing still
trees expanding and their green swallowing the buildings and returning the original smells
returning what's needed
I could see myself leaving the park and walking through an empty ellay
slow and safe with all the other animals
back to the deep forest and the forever water and the sun setting
people can't see it but i can
their end makes everything okay
scare city isn't scare city with no one around to say its name
May 25, 2023
4.5*
Its a great feeling when you finish reading a book and automatically want to start from the begining and read it again. This was one of those books.
If a mountain lion was rigged up to a device where we could understand its thoughts/feelings and words. This would also be it. Outstanding.
Loved the context, imagery produced, character development. Whole lot.
I would suggest reading as little of the synopsis as possible and going in blind. This is one where your guaranteed to enjoy and enjoy finding out for yourself.
Only reason its not 5* is because i wanted more out of sheer greed due to it being so good. I wanted a little more padding between girl and cat before the end. I will be keeping an eye out for more from this author👍🧡
Many thanks to the Author, Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review
Its a great feeling when you finish reading a book and automatically want to start from the begining and read it again. This was one of those books.
If a mountain lion was rigged up to a device where we could understand its thoughts/feelings and words. This would also be it. Outstanding.
Loved the context, imagery produced, character development. Whole lot.
I would suggest reading as little of the synopsis as possible and going in blind. This is one where your guaranteed to enjoy and enjoy finding out for yourself.
Only reason its not 5* is because i wanted more out of sheer greed due to it being so good. I wanted a little more padding between girl and cat before the end. I will be keeping an eye out for more from this author👍🧡
Many thanks to the Author, Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review
November 25, 2024
3.5 stars
short review for busy readers:
An anthropomorphic, thoughtful young mountain lion finds himself in West Hollywood, living underneath the iconic Hollywood sign. He's partial to humans, but they seem terrified of him or intent on using him for their own 'statements'.
"Open Throat" follows the crazy, colourful adventures of the mountain lion over a period of a few days. It's glam, glittery and wild, but it's also thought provoking and a metaphoric meditation on one's "true nature". Because, no matter how tame and people friendly someone can be -- there's still a wild and unpredictable animal in there who follows his own logic to his own ends.
short review for busy readers:
An anthropomorphic, thoughtful young mountain lion finds himself in West Hollywood, living underneath the iconic Hollywood sign. He's partial to humans, but they seem terrified of him or intent on using him for their own 'statements'.
"Open Throat" follows the crazy, colourful adventures of the mountain lion over a period of a few days. It's glam, glittery and wild, but it's also thought provoking and a metaphoric meditation on one's "true nature". Because, no matter how tame and people friendly someone can be -- there's still a wild and unpredictable animal in there who follows his own logic to his own ends.
March 19, 2023
Hoke presents one of the most unique stories i’ve ever read with Open Throat - a sweetly savage novella with a cougar (and not the human kind) as the narrator. seeing humanity through the lens of a wild animal was so fascinating to read and poses some really poignant observations. I really didn’t know what to expect going into this one, but it was well worth the risk picking it up.
March 6, 2024
A mountain lion who understands English, living in the Hollywood Hills. I really enjoyed this. The snippets of human conversation he overhears, the way we were able to look at humans with a different perspective. It took an odd turn when a girl finds him and keeps him in her bedroom and becomes almost speculative at times. But it was all fun, all good.
February 4, 2023
Can confirm: this is a perfect book.
July 16, 2023
There was one element/plot point that stopped this from being a 5-star read for me. But yeah, this is worth your time.
July 27, 2023
Not bad, but I expected more of this novella after reading the rave reviews
June 17, 2023
4.5
Excellent warm and funny. Big cats in SoCal are real af
Excellent warm and funny. Big cats in SoCal are real af
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