Again, I wish they had half stars; this isn't quite a 4, but it also deserves more than a 3. I really like parts of this book. I read it in a day, so it was absorbing enough. It got a bit bogged down in the chapters I didn't really care about. She describes the book's structure as flipping through various channels of her life (romance, cats, death, etc) and I found myself interested in some and annoyed by some.

Fun to read the perspective of a forty-something as a twenty-something twenty years after the book was written. Im both thinking about the past (early chat rooms, and how they've evolved) and the future (where is stacy now? what will I be like at 40?) Both exactly what I expected from this book, and not at all what I expected

Stacy Horn is on the wrong side of 40, lives with her cats, spends a lot of time online, and considers watching TV a kind of a life. This all sounds so familiar but this review is not about me, so let's move on. Waiting for My Cats to Die is a collection of essays broken down into categories that include Death (Horn is fascinated with all things death-related and, according to her friend Mikal, has an unhappy ghost living in her apartment), Cats (about Veets and Beamers, her two diabetic pets), Music (she plays the drums in a samba group), Work (running an online community called EchoNYC and her efforts to sell it), Nostalgia (this seems to be mainly about people who died a long time ago), and Romance (which could also be titled "Nostalgia" -- no offense, Stacy). Despite the amount of time that Horn spends in graveyards and combing through death records, the theme of the book seems to be about figuring out how to be content in life when it doesn't look like it's going to turn out the way you would have hoped and your time to make it turn out that way is growing shorter more quickly than you would have anticipated.

What I loved about Horn is her ability to find happiness in all the little everyday things, be it the way her cats comfort each other, a really good pumpkin pie, or a new episode of The Sopranos. But the book itself is thin; it's sometimes funny and sometimes wise, but overall, it felt like I was reading a series of posts from a good blog ten years after the fact (the book was published in 2001). Her other books, all non-fiction, are on subjects that don't interest me, but since she ranges wide (from choral music to the paranormal), she's someone I would keep an eye on in the future.

Entertaining enough.

Funny and sad. Sometimes morbid.

I first read this morbid memoir about 15 or 20 years ago. I loved it so much I gave it away to an online buddy who was on bed rest for a pregnancy. She asked for good books and it was my best book, so I sent it to her. (I was so nice back then.)

I've thought about this book many times since. Sometimes a favourite book comes along at the right time in your life, and you don't want to risk re-reading it later because you might fall out of love with it. There are only about 5 books that I love this much, and this is one of them. Eventually I decided to take the risk. I found a used hardcover copy online and ordered it. As soon as I started re-reading it, I knew I still loved it. Phew.

Stacy Horn and I have a lot in common, from our age to our stomachs to our online lives to our morbid curiosity. She makes me like myself more because we're a lot alike and I really like her. She's obsessed with death and I always read the obituaries before I even get out of bed in the morning! I collect antique post-mortem photographs! We both love cemeteries and cats! She consulted the municipal archives to find out who the ghost in her apartment is, which is exactly what I would've done if my apartment had a ghost. We both think about the meaning of life and feel anguished about the time we're wasting. (I'm watching re-runs of Grey's Anatomy...I wonder what Stacy's watching.)

The re-reading was just as good as the first reading. But then I got to a chapter titled "Cats." (A lot of the chapters are titled "Cats" or "Death.") She's writing about her fear of her diabetic cats dying because she loves them so much. (Seriously, she loves them way more than is normal or healthy.) I got to this sentence: "He's the one who tried to be sympa-day, it's not serious." Wait, what??
I flipped back and forth between the two pages, re-reading the sentence. Sure enough, sympa-day, it's not serious. Turns out my copy of the book is missing pages 217 to 248. These are 31 critical pages because one of her cats, Veets, dies in those pages. You can tell from the title of the book - Waiting for My Cats to Die - how critical these pages must be.

It doesn't look like the missing pages were removed...it looks like they were never there in the first place. Anyway, I contacted the seller and they refunded my money which was super-nice, but they didn't have another copy to send me. So no pages 217-248 for me, unless serendipity intervenes. (I believe in serendipity.)

I'm curious to know if Stacy still fears death. I don't anymore. It's weird, but the closer I get to being realistically old enough to die of natural causes, the less I fear it. I mean, I don't want to die, but it wouldn't be the end of the world, would it? Would it?

I read 147 pages.

Stacy, you are not funny. Your fantasies are uninspired. You care too much about cats and not enough about people. Stop watching so much tv and hanging out in chat rooms you will not meet "the one" doing that. Finally, everyone is obsessed with death. This was the only interesting part of your book and your mid-life crisis.

People can be put off the title, but those dedicated to caring for animals know they will face their loved ones deaths because they don't live as long as we do. Stacy Horn is a great story teller. She struggles with being a single woman in New York with these two elderly cats. One needs to have a shot every day to help with an old-age malady. She's funny and serious and everyone who has ever loved a cat . . . or a dog, or any non-human creature should check it out.

The title horrified me, but I became an involved and sympathetic proponent of the author.

This book is one I read annually. I've lent it out so many times that I've had to replace it at least four times.

Is it that I'm a single, middle-aged, cat-loving woman as comfortable delving into death as I am delving into life? Hard to know.

What I do know is I felt like I knew the author after the first reading. Stacy Horn manages grim topics with sensitivity and humor.

"I keep coming back to death the same way I can't stop touching a sore tooth with my tongue to see if it still hurts." pg 14.

I love this book. It inspired me to volunteer at a local hospice, and gives me something to look forward to as I begin my every-fall re-read of WAITING FOR MY CATS TO DIE.

I've heard an interp cutting from this book two weeks in a row and totally loved it. The performance was great (1st place out of EIGHT) but the material was first rate. It's out of print, I guess, but can be purchase from Amazon used. Stay tuned.

Okay. This book was odd, but I did like it. She's 40+, in the throws of midlife and constantly contemplates death: hers, the cats, other people and that of the ghost in her apartment. The cat parts mean nothing to me, but I think a "cat person" would feel deeply for the care and money she puts into her cats.

There were some funny bits, but mostly it was very, very depressing and like most memoirs, it left me with little resolution.

I think I'll read it again in 10-15 years.

Started reading this about a year ago. It's not that it's boring...it's just that I choose to read it slowly...a chapter every couple of days.