Audiobook
English language
Published March 5, 2020 by Faber & Faber.
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?
Read by Christopher Myers
I really recommend listening to this book. It's narrated in a rather unique way that makes 'Pet' really come to life. The story itself and especially the setting (after the revolution, in a sort of utopia) is very intriguing, too. There are perhaps some minor contradictions and the ending didn't sit quite right with me (but it's a legitimate choice by the author). But overall, I highly recommend listening to it.
I was so intrigued in the beginning that I felt a little let down by how the story played out in the end. Still, I loved so many things about this! The premise is very out-of-the-box. The relationships are so loving. I liked both of Pet and Jam's characters. Nevertheless, the whole thing could have been thought out more thoroughly.
This is one of those everyone-should-read-it books. Profound, important, and left me feeling significantly changed.
That said, it's hard to put anything about it into specifics. It's hard and raw and easy and gentle all at the same time, and while there's some cool character stuff and speculative stuff and whatnot, everything is in service of the theme - which is so huge that a one- or two-sentence summary feels like doing it a disservice. But though it's a theme book, it's still a very easy read with in-the-moment stakes.
There are about two specifics I think I can point out about this book:
One of the best handlings I've ever seen of the child-hides-big-important-supernatural-thing-from-parents trope. Jam doesn't try to involve her parents (tries not to, in fact), but they do become involved and aware from the beginning; the reason she ends up hiding from them instead of pulling in …
This is one of those everyone-should-read-it books. Profound, important, and left me feeling significantly changed.
That said, it's hard to put anything about it into specifics. It's hard and raw and easy and gentle all at the same time, and while there's some cool character stuff and speculative stuff and whatnot, everything is in service of the theme - which is so huge that a one- or two-sentence summary feels like doing it a disservice. But though it's a theme book, it's still a very easy read with in-the-moment stakes.
There are about two specifics I think I can point out about this book:
One of the best handlings I've ever seen of the child-hides-big-important-supernatural-thing-from-parents trope. Jam doesn't try to involve her parents (tries not to, in fact), but they do become involved and aware from the beginning; the reason she ends up hiding from them instead of pulling in their support is not an abstract fear or absence of trust, but because they refuse to accept that something needs to be done. (Theme, again.)
While there's direct handling of traumatic subject matter, it's abstracted and off-screen to the point where I'd be surprised if it was much of a trigger for anyone. I'm honestly pretty impressed at how much it's... made readable without being made palatable, or in any way diminished, even while the plot revolves directly around it.
...Okay, one more thing: there's about one thing that bothers and confuses me about this book, and it's the inconsistent handling of Jam's relationship with honesty towards her parents. From the moment her mother Bitter is introduced it seems as though honesty is always the best choice with her, and yet Jam instinctively tries to hide from her from the very start of plot, even before anything supernatural happens; later, when she's forced by her parents' actions to hide from them, she feels it as a huge emotional weight; later still, even though only a day or two have passed in-universe ("what felt like forever"), she's so used to hiding that we get the sentence "She knew how to keep things from them." Especially in a theme book that deals heavily with what's seen and unseen and hidden, this feels... weird? Really weird? So weird that I feel like I must be missing something?
Regardless of that, though, it's a book well worth reading.
Selling points: sensible portrayal and questioning/flaw-finding of a genuine utopia; biblical-style angels, but, like, without the religion though; trans girl protagonist; entirely Black cast; no romance (!) even though the protagonist, who is a girl, has a best friend who is a boy (!!); strong non-romantic relationships; queer (poly, bi/pan, trans) representation; disability (wheelchair user + Jam's unnamed neurodivergency (leaning more towards autism than selective mutism myself, but she's certainly in the general category of sometimes-speaking)) representation; somehow both science fiction and fantasy without being science fantasy.
Warnings: child abuse (but, again, so heavily abstracted I'm not even sure if it merits a warning); more profanity and dark subject matter than one might first expect from the simple writing style.
Content warning CW: Abuse, violence
This is marketed as YA, probably because the protagonist, Jam, is around 15 or 16. Some have suggested this as Middle Grade, because Jam sounds much younger than your typical YA protagonist.
This is where it gets complicated.
This takes place in a police-less, prison-less Utopia (but I repeat myself), and different family structures are not looked at as different (one of the supporting characters comes from a PolyAm family).
Jam is trans and selectively mute, so you will see her sign a lot, which is signified in Italics, though she does talk when she's comfortable. Basically everyone in society is fine with that. Great!
The "this protagonist is immature" thing has a few aspects I suppose. 1. If teenagers are teenagers in YA, the adults (it's usually the adult-readers) get mad that they're acting immature. 2. We as a society do not allow black children to be children. Black girls are viewed as sexual objects much younger than white girls, and black boys are rarely if ever correctly identified by age guesstimates (by white people).
I think it's likely both of the above fit into the complaints. I will not deny that Jam acts "younger" than I would expect a 16-year-old in YA to do (and probably more than I would expect of a black protagonist). But this is a view at a possible utopia, and I think the message is that "in this utopia we try to allow children to be children"
Of course what is this book but the killing of that innocence?
The premise is that all the "monsters" of the past are gone, dead and defeated by the "Angels"
But what do you do when a creature comes to life to hunt a Monster in your town that they insist exists?
Of course, the monster exists. The problem is that everyone denies its existence.
And is there a way to deal with monsters other than execution? This book argues yes.
I think this is worth reading, but do not go in expecting a typical Young Adult title. Because it's not.
Slight but heavy: a fantasy story with strong themes about ethics, family, history, and the line between good and evil - all drawn together with strong characters and beautiful prose. For me, the epilogue let the story down a little bit with emotion that didn't quite ring true. Nonetheless, I'm quickly learning that I'll follow Akwaeke Emezi anywhere.
YA of what it feels to be a trans kid, with an unflinching adjacent storyline asking "what violence is society unwilling to see?"
PET is about abuse and the shape of justice, because removing monsters requires vigilance. The MC has space to make the wrong decision sometimes and then figure out the aftermath without failure being catastrophic. She has a very strong sense of herself which helps ground the story as she's trying to figure out how to deal with the disturbing disruption to her life which is the main plot. The plot is about child abuse and how a community deals with abusers and enablers, but the text itself keeps most descriptions vague except for a few places where it's very important to be clear about what's going on. I like the way the "no monsters" setup is subverted and examined without making the narrator into a liar. Overall this is a short and cathartic book about communication and justice, with a vibrant MC and really great characterization of secondary and minor …
We start with an almost unbearably diverse and accepting world. The kind
of checks-every-box utopia that strains credulity in 2020. I almost
closed the book because it felt a little contrived. The world is a bad
hard place and it is kind of a struggle to read otherwise right now. But in the end, the cynicism of the present was the perfect lens for taking in this little book!
I was primed to look for cracks in the
facade of this seemingly perfectly safe and perfectly diverse world,
just as Jam, the main character, resists seeing them herself. It’s a
great juxtaposition. Jam’s optimism and resilience played against the
brutal realism of Pet’s quest left me, by the end, hoping to one day
have a future worth protecting-one that’s imperfect but still full of
love and care, as Lucille is. All the characters were richly drawn and a joy to …
Wow. I had actual goosebumps through the whole final chapter. Should be recommended reading in gradeschools, for sure.
The characters in PET are wonderfully diverse without their diversity being a plot point. And Jam and Redemption's friendship is the most loving, beautifully written friendship I've read to date.
The town of Lucille is essentially a utopia. Its older citizens have done some hard, difficult work. Justice is restorative, not punitive. There's a deep sense of community, of caring for each other as if they're all family, of getting to the root of problems and working them out. The community emphasizes free access to knowledge and the importance of public spaces like libraries. But Lucille is also a reminder that when we think we've figured things out, we must stay vigilant; complacency makes us unable and/or unwilling to acknowledge that injustices continue to occur.
With its powerful storyline and its emotional final scenes, PET addresses the cynicism that can creep in and exhaust people who care about social justice, …
This is a great manifestation of the discussions I've observed regarding representation in modern YA. To clarify on my rating, I think it's a great book that every young person should have the opportunity to finish. From the perspective of a privileged adult, it's two stars short of a masterpiece in part because it's clear Emezi wrote this in a crunch and as something of an experiment. I respect their motivations for doing so and what they accomplished, but a more polished version of this story would have involved less a less simplistic resolution to the mystery and a more challenging exploration of the "blind spots" in Lucille. But Jam as a protagonist is a revelation and this definitely motivates me to seek out Freshwater.
One of the best, most subtle, and intricately written stories I've ever read. I love this and I'm recommending it to everyone I know.
