How I have I not read this New Zealand author before with me being a kiwi myself! What a delicious slow burning read this is.
A masterclass in manipulation of a teacher to her pupils, where she plays favourites and pits them against each other. On the cusp of their teenage years the children in Mrs Prices class at St Michaels primary school, are in their final year before high school. Mrs Price is young and pretty, her life has a tragic past where she lost her husband and young daughter in a car crash. She has come to Wellington to start over. All the children in her class vie for her attention, they want to be the “pet” the one called out to do chores for Mrs Price, to clean the blackboard, do errands in town for her, to bask in her smile. Her tactics lead to competitiveness amongst the children and when items began to go missing, mistrust and finger pointing at each other.
The narrator of the story is Justine, a young girl plagued with epileptic fits, who has recently lost her mother to cancer and whose father, an antiques dealer, has slipped into a life of drinking and melancholy. The narrative flits from 2014 where her father is in a care facility suffering from dementia, to the 1980s when she was at school. It’s a snapshot in a way of time that will be familiar with the NZ readers, when life was slower but the racism and politics still rife. The tension in the book slowly increases as friendships are put to the test and then one of the students dies.
Fabulous read, I highly recommend

#Pet #NetGalley

When you hear the words, "teacher's pet", I bet you can think of at least one kid you grew up with who always wanted to be by your teacher's side, kissing up to them to get preferential treatment and annoying everyone else by it. No one wants to be remembered as the teacher's pet, but that's not true in 12-year-old Justine's class.

It's 1984 in Wellington, New Zealand, and everyone wants to be the beautiful and charming Mrs. Price's pet, especially Justine. When the belongings of all her classmates start to go missing, her best friend Amy is the only one who hasn't gotten anything stolen. While the entire class suspects Amy, Amy suspects something isn't quite right with Mrs. Price, but her only potential ally is Justine, Mrs. Price's favourite pet at the moment. Justine needs to decide where her loyalties lie - is it true that there is something off with Mrs. Price, or is Amy just jealous that she gets to be her pet?

This is one of the best thrillers I've ever read. Mrs. Price gave Meredith Blake from The Parent Trap vibes. Something isn't right about her but you can't put your finger on it until her patience is tested and you catch a very small glimpse of the devil within, but then she goes sweet again and you're questioning if that glimpse of evil was all in your head. I had to read sentences over and over to prove to myself that it was real, and in a similar fashion, so did Justine.

I'm picky about thrillers, but I genuinely have no complaints, it was so suspenseful. This book is a lot darker than it seems from my blurb so please read trigger warnings. Something so unexpected happened in this book and I actually cried about it; I was so invested in these characters and I don't think I'll ever get over it. Since when do we cry at thrillers?! The bar is now set high.

You need to read this if you want a suspenseful and engaging read. It was so different from anything I've read and I could not put it down!!!

Thank you so much to Europa Editions for my ARC, I've found a new favourite!

Wow!! I loved Pet, and at the same time I was incredibly uncomfortable the entire time I was reading it. As an educator, it was horrific, but Chidgey's writing is so powerful that I could not look away.

I found this to be a decent thriller, primarily because the character development was really strong and New Zealand is an unusual setting. The main character was very likable in the 1980s timeline, though less developed in the present day. I didn't feel much tension related to uncovering the villain; it seemed pretty obvious. But apart from that, an enjoyable read and good for thriller fans.

This was a fun and creepy literary thriller. In the vein of Heavenly Creatures. It took me a while to get into the story- but I am a sucker for tales of obsession and May-December romances, no matter how uncouth they may be.

This was a dark , tense, exceptionally well written book that really got in under my skin.

It is predominantly set in 1984 in Wellington, New Zealand. Justine is 12 and in her final year in a catholic school, she has recently lost her mother to breast cancer , her father is grief stricken and Justine finds distraction and then obsession with the newly arrived teacher in her school.. Mrs Price is glamourous, exotic , drives a corvette and is unlike any teacher these children have known before. Mrs Price is also manipulative and has a number of ever changing ( teacher's) Pet. The children all want to be her chosen one and Mrs Price wields this power over them while her red lipstick smile stays in place. Justine is at a very vulnerable point in her life and Mrs Price can see and prey on this. Things start to go missing in their classroom , lies and arguments are now commonplace and friendships fall apart as the story unfolds making the reader more uneasy as each page is read.

This was a really compelling read that is still swirling around my mind. The tension builds slowly and steadily throughout the book and balances right on the knife edge of wanting to put the book down and not being able to stop reading. Mrs Price is a deeply fascinating character, one of the most memorable I have read in a while and the 1980s is captured with unflinching accuracy with everyday misogyny and racism and the church laced through the background of the story. Loss, betrayal, obsession, lies, a not always reliable narrator and the very real overwhelming sense of apprehension when reading all work together to make this a disturbingly memorable read.
Recommend.

4-4.5 stars.

4.5 stars. Justine has finally made it to the most coveted position in her class: teacher's pet. Mrs Price is a veritable goddess in the eyes of her class of twelve-year-olds, but even adults fall victim to her sparkling charm and glamorous style. Justine's best friend Amy starts to get jealous of all the extra attention Justine is receiving, and when the classroom is hit by a series of thefts, Amy is suspected as the culprit. Can it be true? Or is something much more sinister going on?

Read this if you:
🖋 ever had an extra-special teacher
🐑 are interested in the groupthink phenomenon
🩸 love a bit of slow-burning sinister suspense

Catherine Chidgey is a New Zealand author who has won several prizes and awards for her fiction, yet this is the first book of hers I've ever laid hands on here in the US. After reading Pet, I am positively champing at the bit for more! Pet is exquisite in its structure — it's deliciously slow and brimming with detail, and the way that it turns so subtly from pre-teen drama to sinister thriller is just perfection. I couldn't put it down after the first third or so!

I grew up in the late 80s and early 90s, so a lot of the school experiences Justine has are near-direct correlations to my own memories, which just enhances my love for this story. Justine as a character is relatable both at age 12 and age 42, and though I am sometimes not a fan of split timeline novels, I found the 2014 storyline really impactful. I also just have to say that I personally ADORED the souvenir floaty pens that Justine describes, and I had several. And now I will never look at them the same way again 🤣

Now, a word of caution: this is not a popcorn thriller. This is literary fiction with a twist of dark suspense. The writing is exquisite and I will be recommending this novel far and wide, but don't pick it up when you're looking for blood and murderers and a break-neck pace!

I generally avoid reading books involving children and others not adult but I’m glad I made an exception for Pet.This truly as a hard book to put down, the quality of the prose is outstanding and the level of sensitivity to the surroundings is remarkable.
While the reader , as an adult, is aware of .the nature of the teacher all along, the child is understandably ignorant
To say, that there is a twist is to reduce a really gripping character revelation to a trick.
All in all this is one of the most original and rewarding books I’ve read in years.

“Pet” – Catherine Chidgey



Thanks to @netgalley and @europaeditions for my ARC copy – this one is out 8th August in the US, and already out in the UK.

Set in an 80s Catholic school in New Zealand, “Pet” is told through the eyes of Justine, 12 years old, epilepsy sufferer, and still coming to terms with the loss of her mother to breast cancer. Her father is hitting the bottle, so Justine starts to look for attention from her new glamorous teacher, Mrs Price.

Problem is, Mrs Price is as manipulative as she is charismatic, keeping forming favourites in the class and making them her “pets”, willing to do almost anything for her. Less popular students, like Justine and her best friend Amy Fong, are left with the guilt of their religious education and the desire to rank the other girls in order of prettiness – they always rank themselves fourth, that seems fair.

From this foundation emerges a hugely enjoyable psychological thriller, one with uncertainty at its very core. Justine’s fits often leave gaps in her story, making her an unreliable narrator at best, one whose susceptibility to gaslighting leaves you wondering what the actual truth is, even at the very point of denouement. Chidgey mirrors this with a more modern timeline, with Justine’s father in a dementia ward and a nurse who looks uncannily like Mrs Price.

The storyline is great, constantly engaging, and the themes of memory, guilt and betrayal left me never feeling completely comfortable, but in the best way. I have to say that there was one part involving a protest that didn’t quite fit for me – it definitely touches on the above themes, but I felt it was out of place? Aside from this, though, I thought this was a masterpiece in tension. It’s not the type of thing I usually read, but it’s one I highly recommend. I’ve literally told everyone I’ve seen since I finished reading to buy it, so I can't praise it higher than that!

4.5 stars

I was only going to read one more chapter... and now it's 2am. I absolutely devoured this book.

Set in new zealand in the 1980s, pet follows twelve-year-old justine, who longs to be the teachers pet of charming, beautiful mrs price. Then a thief starts targetting their classroom, and things take a turn for the worse and worser. This book touches on so many themes, like racism, catholic guilt and grief. And somehow all of that ties together into a brilliant thriller.

This would have been a perfect five stars from me, if it weren't for the very last chapter. Without giving too much away, some of the last minute twists felt a bit over the top and unneccesary to me. Had the book ended after the second to last chapter - chef's kiss, honestly. Still, i enjoyed this so much and i definitely recommend picking pet up when it's out.

Thanks to Netgalley and Europa Editions for the eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review! Pet will be out on auguat 8, 2023.

A quick and enjoyable read that gripped me from the beginning. Catherine Chidgey perfectly depicts the teacher -child toxic dynamic that 12-year-old Justine finds herself in with the charismatic and beautiful Ms Price.

The pacing was very well done, and the story builds perfectly. I enjoyed the nostalgia of the 1980s New Zealand setting, however I do feel it slots more into the young adult/coming of age genre rather than thriller in my opinion. The publishers compare this to ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ and I have to agree it certainly gave the same vibe and feel. Overall I would definitely recommend.

I appreciated the young narrator in Pet, and it never felt too juvenile in the writing. There was tension and I liked the 80's setting as well. Well done!

This was my first Chidgey novel but it won't be my last! Pet is a curious story told by 12 year old Justine.

As the story goes deeper and deeper, Justine reveals more and more... I especially liked how Chidgey shows the angst-y lives of pre-teenagers (she did this brilliantly) and when you throw in a very manipulative teacher and you have the makings of a slow-burn thriller! (Yes, even at a Catholic day school in New Zealand!)

I highly recommend this hard to put down book!

My thanks to Netgalley and Europa Editions for the copy of this book. It will be published soon - August 8, 2023.

I think we need to retired the word thriller. This was suspenseful, even mysterious but it wasn't a thriller. I also have found that so many authors are setting their books in the recent-ish past, probably to avoid cell phones, lately. I thought it was fun to read something about the '80s in a different country. It really sucked you in and you could see why they were in the teacher's thrall.

Pet wasn’t on my radar until I saw a rave review from a trusted reader, that plus knowing Catherine Chidgey is a great writer from Remote Sympathy made Pet an instant request.

It’s labelled psychological thriller, which I would argue is not entirely accurate; for the most part this is a coming-of-age story of a pre-teen girl who has recently lost her mother and, like everyone in her class, becomes enamoured with her glamourous new teacher and wants to be her pet. Justine is growing up, experiencing grief, fall-outs, bras, and periods – emotions are high and only heightened further by an underlying, unsettling tension. Yes, things definitely reach a thrill-filled climax but until then it’s not your typical thriller.

It’s also exceptionally well-written. It’s not the pulpy, fast-paced, beyond-belief romp I’ve come to think of as a thriller (not that that’s always bad), it’s actually quite slow and much more sophisticated. It’s well-plotted and everything comes together neatly without the need for a deus ex machina moment to get the author out of a tight spot. The characters are well-defined and their actions and motivations believable - I even laughed out loud at the unintentionally funny comments from the children.

The publishers say Pet is a novel for fans of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Secret History and The Girls; I’d say the first is particularly apt. There’s the feeling that the small primary school classroom is the entire world and the teacher reigns, a feeling compounded by the Wellington, NZ setting – a small community, on a small island, at the end of the world. Factor in it being 1984 and it makes for a strong atmosphere.

Compelling all the way through, with a strong ending and just the right amount of ambiguity, Pet was what I’m always looking for in a book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and raced through it.

Thank you NetGalley and Europa Editions!

Pet is a book that simply caught my eye while browsing Netgalley one day and I’m very grateful that I was accepted to read it - I’m not sure if this book is one I would naturally seek out in a bookshop so I’m glad to have stumbled across it pre-publication.

What an intriguing and disturbing story! Haven’t we all at some point in our lives wanted to be a teacher’s pet and to be favoured above our classmates? The charismatic and beautiful Mrs Price has her whole class of twelve-year-olds clamouring to be the special chosen one and Justine is the lucky pupil who gets that honour…

What started out as quite a pleasant and normal domestic scene slowly turned into something murky and sinister. The story is divided into snapshots of Justine’s primary school days in the 1980s and her present day life as an adult in 2004. Although nothing huge or horrific happens (bar one very tragic incident), the absolute unease and sense of foreboding that crept up on me refused to go away - for good reason.

The author has provided an interesting and childlike view of what it’s like to be manipulated by a person in a position of trust and power, with casual lies and divisive tactics used that are fairly obvious to us as readers/adults but less so to young, impressionable children who are eager to please. I found this story fascinating! However felt very mildly underwhelmed by the ending - I would have preferred something more definitive!

Thank you to Europa Editions, Netgalley and the author for an E-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pet is a psychological thriller where 12 yo Justine, enamoured by her teacher, Ms Price, learns that things might not be as they seem inside or outside the classroom. The novel deals with grief, racism, religion and other heavy topics, and does it realistically through Justine's eyes.

I found it a bit slow to start but I flew through the last half of the book. It was refreshingly different to read NZ fiction, especially 1980s NZ, and I particularly liked the way it was told by the unreliable narrator (a young vulnerable girl whose seizures sometimes affect her memory). I'll definitely be picking up more of Chidgey's work in the future.

Read as an ARC via NetGalley

3.5/5 ⭐️
Twelve year old Justine is eager to become the class pet of the class’s new beloved teacher. Mrs. Price. Things get strange though when someone starts stealing things from the students and Justine’s best friend Amy is the suspect. However, Amy suspects Mrs. Price is to blame. Justine doesn’t know who to trust or be loyal to.

I found this to be a quick, easy read but I was missing some of the themes described in the synopsis. It talks about racism and while there was clear discrimination against Amy since she was Asian, it didn’t really come through since the narrator was 12 and didn’t really understand the context. Even in the 2014 chapters, this wasn’t really brought up much. Secondly, I didn’t really see a bunch of twists like the synopsis described. The last 10% of the book definitely amped up the suspense but before that, I found it more coming of age with an untrustworthy adult.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

Pet is an exciting psychological thriller about a school teacher, Mrs. Price, whose twelve-year-old student are obsessed with trying to please her and be her pet. Justine is not one of her pet, but she hopes she will be one, until it actually happens. She gets asked to stay in class after classes to straighten up the classroom, clean up, she even get asked to run errands for Mrs. Price, and she does it gleefully. To the point that she is leaving her best friend Amy behind. Amy seems to be the only classmate who starts to question this nonsense. Then things start to get stolen in the classroom; several students mention missing some personal belongings. Mrs Price has a questionable way of handling this situation. Things are slowly starting to get out of control. It was an interesting read about manipulation and people pleasing to a point of submissiveness.

I really liked the writing, the character developing, the lies, and how one can feel getting sucked in deeper when trying to expose a truth no one believe in. It was intense!

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange of my honest review.

An extremely compelling and slow-burn psychological thriller, this book grabbed me from page one and didn't let go. The story is intriguing and disturbing, the pacing is perfect, and the whole thing is told through the eyes of a 12 year old who may or may not be a reliable narrator. Encompassing themes of power, betrayal, grief, and belonging, this dark tale will be relatable to anyone who has ever wanted to be the teacher's pet.
Thank you, NetGalley and Europa Editions, for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.