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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.