Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Pet

by Akwaeke Emezi

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by The New York Times • Time • Buzzfeed • NPRNew York Public Library • Publishers Weekly • School Library Journal

A genre-defying novel from the award-winning author NPR describes as “like [Madeline] L’Engle…glorious.” A singular book that explores themes of identity and justice. Pet is here to hunt a monster. Are you brave enough to look?


There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother's paintings and a drop of Jam's blood, she must reconsider what she's been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption's house. Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth, and the answer to the question--How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?

A riveting and timely young adult debut novel that asks difficult questions about what choices you can make when the society around you is in denial. 

"[A] beautiful, genre-expanding debut" –The New York Times

"The word hype was invented to describe books like this." –Refinery29

Reviewed by layawaydragon on

5 of 5 stars

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-LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
-LOVE ALL OF IT, CHARACTERS, SETTING, WORLD BUILDING, PACING, ENDING, ETC ETC
-UNIQUE AF, UNLIKE ANYTHING YOU'VE EVER READ
-WRITING IS AMAZING
-I haven't read Emezi's Freshwater, but I will and will continue with her new releases
-Hells yes I would let my 12 year old to read this. I'd love it if she did!
-There is no vigilante justice. It doesn't advocate vigilante justice. It actively argues AGAINST IT. Anyone who thinks that clearly skimmed or didn't get it. An angel compels the abuser to confess and there's a trial and society changes again. Seriously!! THIS IS NOT FUCKING BATMAN FFS.


But an echo of a memory is not the same as a memory, and a memory is not the same as now, and anyway, he'd said it loud enough that the painting heard it.


But forgetting is dangerous. Forgetting is how the monsters come back.


Pet crouched down and slid its spine from side to side, as if stretching. "It is not a what. It is a who. The why is monstrous. The when is here."


Adults were like that so much of the time, inflexible when they thought they had something to protect.


You think you see everything, so you think everything you see is all there is to be seen.


Jam could pretend that everything had stopped, and in that space of that pause, she could breathe.


"Ain't no grown-up in the whole of Lucille grown enough to tell you you don't deserve answers to your questions. You understand?"

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  • 12 February, 2020: Reviewed
  • Started reading
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  • 12 February, 2020: Reviewed
  • Started reading
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  • 12 February, 2020: Reviewed