This book is wild and strange and sort of brilliant. I honestly had no idea what to expect when I started reading, and I’ll confess that at first I was confused about the worldbuilding. The book is set in a utopian society where all of the evil people in the world (or “monsters”) were eliminated by a group that’s referred to as angels. Everyone knows that monsters no longer exist, so when Jam accidentally releases a creature from her mother’s painting that says it’s there to hunt them, her parents say she needs to send it back before it causes unnecessary pain and suffering. The book holds a lens to the world and how easy it is to pretend that problems (even very serious ones) don’t exist. Of course, not admitting that they’re there doesn’t actually make them go away—it just lets them fester. There’s lots of talk about how the angels might look like monsters and vice versa—at first, Jam doesn’t see how there could be any issues in her best friend’s family because they seem so very perfect.

I should also mention the diversity here: not only is Jam black, but she is also transgender (a fact that is mentioned but isn’t dwelled on in any way except to say it was accepted).

The story is haunting and beautifully written, though it does seem like there might be a bit of a disconnect between the somewhat simplistic thinking of a younger YA character and the complexity of the storytelling. Still, I hope this isn’t an issue that deters readers, because it’s a fabulous read!

***Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***

This one seems to be geared towards teens, but is written in a babyish way that would make most teens put it down. I couldn’t get into it.

Beautifully written, quick read! Kind of a parable about "angels" vs. "monsters" in a community and what happens when you think you have rooted out all the monsters but you haven't. Lots to think about with this one! Also beautiful depictions of family, friendship, and supportive parents of a trans teen.

What if there were a world with no monsters? Sounds impossible but that is the situation for Jam and her family. Or is it? When Jam meets Pet, her whole world shifts. Emezi has written a stunning story with a diverse cast of characters who are incidentally diverse instead of the story's focus. I read through this book in a single sitting and have purchase a copy for my niece as a result. Emezi's beautiful and accessible prose and well-paced action ensures an incredible read for children and teens.

An enlightening story that parents can use to start some needed conversations about subjects that don't exist because no one talks about them. When a young girl and her friend discover a non-monster...it can't be a monster because monsters don't exist...they must learn how to identify problems and use their wits to solve them. A really great story full of symbolism that hopefully will help young readers face difficulties head on.

In a world where monsters can look like regular people and angels can look like monsters, Jam must learn to look past appearances to hunt a monster in her best friend’s house. This is a brilliantly told story about how looks can be deceiving and how to do what’s right, even when you’re frightened and no one else believes you.

This book just wasn’t my cup of tea. I gave it two stars for creativity. I found it to be predictable. The writing was middle grade level but the material was more young adult.

Pet is the story of a girl who lives in a perfect city where monsters were driven away years ago … or so they thought. It’s a story that reminds us that monsters can have many faces.

I seem to be in the minority here, but to me, Pet was an okay read that had potential but almost seemed like it tried to do too much and somehow, at the same time, did too little. I loved the idea and enjoyed the mystery and the hunt, but other than Pet, I just couldn’t connect to any of the characters or even the world.

My Thoughts:

- I’m just going to come out and say this: if you’re a Conservative, you may not enjoy this book as much, or at least not until the story really gets going. Even as someone who considers herself pretty liberal … the story was a bit much for me. This is very much a stereotypical, unnuanced liberal utopia. The point of the story is that, ultimately, even the most “perfect” ideal city … isn’t. And at some point, that becomes obvious. However, you still have to make it past a lot of monologues about how wonderful things are now in Lucille compared to the past. The monologues became a bit much for me and really felt like they were pushing an agenda hard. Personally, I’m not a fan of reading books with a heavy-handed agenda, regardless of whether I agree with them or not.

- There is a lot of diversity in this book, in many different forms. The protagonist is a little black girl, who also happens to be transgender. Her parents are immigrants, whose speech is influenced by where they’re from. What I thought was particularly neat was that Jam was a selective mute, which meant she often signed rather than verbally speaking. I don’t see this a lot in books, and while I don’t think it was handled all that great in this book, it was definitely an interesting aspect that I appreciated. Signing is a complex language and hard to capture in the written word, but I’m always glad to see the attempt.

- This book raises a whole slew of moral questions, which I loved, and would be a great jumping-off point for many conversations. The book doesn’t shy away from pointing out that the line between angel and monster isn’t as vast as one might think. This book raises so many questions and really encourages critical thinking and delving into some complex issues. My favorite thing, personally, is the idea that monsters didn’t simply go away. People just forgot what they looked like. They forgot to look for them. And that thought is so freaking chilling, but also so very accurate, and I just loved that so much.

- Pet is an absolutely brilliant character and definitely the highlight of this book for me.
Pet has one ultimate goal: hunt the monsters. Destroy the monsters. … wait, is that two goals? Technically, he just wants to destroy them, and hunting is a necessary evil in that, but whatever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You know what I mean. He’s very much a morally gray character who’s bristling with impatience and sarcasm, so really, it should be no surprise why I like him.

- If I give any sort of trigger warning, it’s going to be a massive spoiler, so I’ll just say that it has some pretty dark content towards the end. I mean, the whole point of the book is hunting a monster, right? And there is a monster at the end of this book. This book has some great messages, but I’d also caution younger YA readers as to whether or not they’re ready for such heavy content.

Sticking Points:

- This book is listed as YA and recommended for 12+ on Amazon, but the writing feels younger than that (older mid-grade, maybe). At the same time, the content feels more upper YA. This book definitely didn’t feel YA for me. This book is recommended for grades 7 – 9, but I personally wouldn’t necessarily give this to those readers due to the content. There feels like a disconnect between the writing level, which feels more immature, and the content, which I would recommend a reader being more on the mature side before reading.

- There’s a disconnect between Jam’s age and how she acts and how people treat her. I’m not sure why she wasn’t younger. Let’s be honest, Jam acts about 10 – 12, which would be perfect for the target audience of this book. But according to the beginning of the book, she’s supposed to be 16? Which … I have concerns. I mean, she acts like and is treated like such a kid, even to the point where her mother carries her to bed after she falls asleep. I had to keep reminding myself that she was supposed to be older, because she just didn’t strike me as 16 at all.

- I read an ARC version, so this may not be a problem in the finished version, but there’s no consistency with formatting thoughts, which becomes confusing. Jam communicates with Pet through thought sometimes, as well as having her own inner thoughts. Sometimes inner thoughts are italicized. Sometimes they’re not. Chat with Pet is often not italicized, which is kind of confusing, but then sometimes it is. The back and forth was sometimes hard to follow. To add to all of this, signing is also italicized. The formatting really could’ve used a little more work to make it clearer.

- There’s not really much character development or growth, which was a bit of a disappointment. Given how ridiculously naive Jam starts, one might think that would leave plenty of room for her to grow and evolve, and she kind of just … doesn’t? There definitely wasn’t much of a character arc to speak of.

- It feels like there’s so much left out of this story, and what’s hinted at and not discussed is what I want to read, because it sounds like that is the real story. I don’t want to give too much away because of spoilers, but Jam’s parents, Bitter and Aloe were alive before the monsters were driven away. They lived through the revolution. They saw what had to happen. Also, they’ve met Pet before. WHAT EVEN IS THIS STORY? WHERE IS IT? Because that sounds like a hecka fun story to follow. I want to know more about this. There’s pretty much no world-building as far as history goes. It’s mentioned here and there sometimes, but then dropped like it doesn’t matter, when it so clearly does.

Thank you NetGalley for the Arc in exchange for my review.

While the book was marketed as YA, I felt like it was geared more towards tweens. That doesn't mean I found anything wrong with it. In fact, I adored this book.

Even the names, which I thought were over the top at first (Jam, Bitter, Aloe, Glass, Moss Etc) and the fact that the name is Lucille.
The monsters in the novel are the true monsters: Murders, sex offenders, rapists abusers etc, but Pet is created into life to show that they are there and that Pet must find them.

Such a beautiful well written book!

Pet is a monster created to hunt monsters. Or rather, Pet looks like a monster, but the real monsters are humans, humans that do evil.

Jam has been born into a town that has no monsters. All the monsters, the evil people, have been spotted and driven out, so there is no need to hunt for them anymore.

Except there are still monsters, whether people believe there are or not.

This novel is trying to show that evil can lurk and fester if we aren't aware of it. Most of the book is Jam trying to tell Pet that the monsters are all gone, no need to look, everything is fine, and Pet telling her it doesn't matter what she believes.

The visuals of this book are good, but the story is painfully slow. I love Pet, as a character, but a lot of time is spent just discussing what needed to be done.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

After absolutely loving Freshwater, there wasn’t a question in my mind of whether or not I’d pick up Pet. I was actually lucky enough to grab a copy off Netgalley! Pet tells the story of a black trans girl named Jam, who lives in a utopian society where all “monsters” have been vanquished. The problem is, an otherworldly creature crawls out of a painting created by Jam’s mother and insists that there is a monster, and that it has come to hunt it.

I found that I loved a lot about the characters in this novel. As far as I remember, none of the characters were white. Jam herself is trans, which was just a fact of life and not the source of any kind of conflict, and is also implied to have selective mutism. She speaks sign language with most of the people around her, who have learned it so that she can communicate more comfortably. Jam’s best friend Redemption also has parents who are in a polyamorous relationship, which I was thrilled to see!

I found the message of the story to be quite important: that monsters are often hiding in plain sight, and that we must be willing to look for them. The problem with this utopian society was that in believing all of the monsters were gone, they no longer kept their eyes open and were blind to the reality in front of them. While it’s scary to realize that we’re not as safe as we think, it’s important to look out for red flags and to protect everyone around us. I thought this was really well-done and hope that this story can reach children and young adults -- and even adults -- who need to hear this message.

One of my only complaints was that I struggled to pick apart most of Redemption’s family. They all sort of blurred together for me, save for his uncle Hibiscus and brother Moss. I think this is less that they don’t have distinct personalities and more that not enough time is spent with them for those personalities to feel fully developed. It didn’t cause much trouble for me, but did occasionally get a bit confusing.

Overall, this was definitely a solid read and I’m glad that Emezi is able to spread such an important message.

Amazing. Brilliant. Brave. Different. Necessary.

P. S. I love when the story is also connected to the cover art 🎨

This is a beautiful, focused tale from a fresh voice in YA fiction. This deserves all the praise it receives, and I hope to get it into the hands of many young people.

Lots of great stuff in this one:
1. Representation: Jam is trans, but the story isn't about her transition which feels like a huge step in literature in general, not just for books for kids. She also often speaks with sign language, which isn't even hard to include in books, but is not something we are given often enough.
2. This is not a THE FATE OF THE WORLD DEPENDS ON YOU, A 15 YEAR OLD IN LOVE WITH YOUR BEST FRIENDS OLDER BROTHER narrative: we've got fantasy, but many of the tropes that we've come to expect from books for this age group are being bucked. Nary a love triangle in sight. Rejoice!
3. Pet (the creature) is creepy and fascinating and utterly original.
4. Jam's parents are cool as hell and also love her.

What broke down for me was, well, some important plot themes. I know this is pretty standard for Sci-Fi/Fantasy, but I really, really do not like calling human people, even if they are bad and do the worst things, monsters. I get that it's a semantics issue, but dehumanizing even bad people opens everyone up to doing monstrous things. So I had a difficult time with the premise of needing to eradicate people for their actions - again, even if they were horrifying. I'm trying to be as non-spoilery here as possible, but I also found the end message of the novel to have weirdly mixed signals. There was a strong pull toward straight up ultra-violent vengeance, and I'd argue that it didn't totally skirt that even if there was a veneer of eventually having some sort of due process justice. This mixed with a mostly blank world that didn't give me a great sense of place, and narration that got bogged down with far too much standard YA "should I or shouldn't I?" made for a fairly unsatisfactory ending to this otherwise promising book.

PET combines a world of magical realism and utopia, with the dystopia of the past running directly underneath. The issues of angels and monsters is something that resonates with today, giving readers hope for a time when it might reflect into the real world. Angels fighting monsters and creating a perfect world is a nice thought. The unique characters and our titular PET make for an interesting and quick read, and the author's prose leaks into a poetic realm at times.

This felt like a parable with a twist - it had religious themes of angels, good vs. evil, and trusting in unseen powers, but there were also a lot of aspects that made if feel fresher and more contemporary than your typical spiritual tale. For one, the main character is a transgender black girl named Jam, and I just loved her. Her empathy and bravery combine to make her such a memorable heroine in the story. The writing was also so well done - I could see a lot of teen readers flying through this to find out what happens, but they will also be consuming some really beautiful words about love, not turning a blind eye to "monsters," and speaking up for victims of violence and hate. In a world where so many people experience evils that aren't acknowledged or spoken about, this book is so important. It's slim in size but manages to say so much.

Unlike any other book I’ve read in recent years. A bit dark for a YA novel but the premise is very relevant. I don’t want to give too much away but definitely recommend.

“The truth does not change whether it is seen or unseen… A thing which is happening happens whether you look at it or not. And yes, maybe it is easier not to look. Maybe it is easier to say because you do not see it, it is not happening.”

What if I told you a town called Lucille had figured out how to vanquish its monsters—corrupt politicians and policemen, abusers, murderers, and more—and reformed gun laws and prisons and other crooked structures as we know them? Lucille exists sometime in the distant future, after all the monsters have been defeated and children only hear about the global horrors we currently face every day. But when Jam accidentally conjures a horned and feathered creature named Pet from a different dimension, she must muster all her courage to hunt what she believed to be extinct: a hidden monster lurking in Lucille. Jam and Pet must work together to protect and save Jam’s best friend, Redemption, from a dangerous truth while Jam questions everything she knows.

Pet is a whirlwind of a novel, not very long in length but boasting an unexpected depth. At first, Emezi’s writing style and voice struck me as simple and (maybe) a little boring. However, I found that by the end of the book, this was anything but true. Pet features a vast range of diverse characters, from Jam—a black transgender teen girl—to Redemption’s three parents—one of whom uses they/them pronouns—to Ube, the town’s wise librarian who uses a wheelchair. Pet touches on some heavy issues, so if you’re thinking a younger teenage protagonist and concise language seem more juvenile, this novel makes its own space in the YA sphere. Emezi successfully weaves important themes about identity, questioning what you’ve been taught, and being brave enough to fight your world’s monsters in this emotionally charged and complex tale about a girl, her best friend, and a monster-fighting creature in their fight to stand up for what’s right.

Hands up everyone who read Freshwater and thought “When will Emezi grace us with a YA novel? That is clearly their metier.” Because I freely admit that I was not among your number. Freshwater was one of my best reads of 2018 — the writing was brutal and gorgeous, and I felt elated to be reading the debut of an author of Emezi’s talent, and to know that they had a whole writing career ahead of them and I would get to read all those books. But still, when I saw the announcement that Emezi would be releasing a YA novel, I was like, REALLY. Because Freshwater was like, a really hard read in places.

Imagine my surprise when Pet is the gentlest of reads. Admittedly it’s dealing with a really hard issue — child sexual abuse — but it does so with such hope and tenderness. When I say that Pet is a kind read, I mean that its author is kind to its characters, and its characters are kind to each other. There’s a fundamental belief that everyone is trying their best and deserves the benefit of the doubt on that account.

But, okay! What’s the book about? Pet is set in a community called Lucille that has solved all of its problems. Lucille used to be like our world, with lots of suffering caused by not caring about each other, but Lucille had a revolution in the last generation and got rid of all that stuff. How exactly they managed such a revolution is not explained, as Pet is in setting more parable than futurefic. Jam, who rarely speaks and often signs, has two loving friends and a supportive school environment, and everything is hunky-dory until she bleeds on one of her mother’s paintings and a creature called Pet emerges from the drawing into the world. It explains to Jam that there’s a monster at her friend Redemption’s house, and that it’s a hunter come to find and destroy that monster. Jam doesn’t understand how that can be, given that the angels of the revolution got rid of all the monsters. But Pet insists that it’s so, and enlists Jam’s help to find who the monster is.

The good: I loved the setting, and it truly was a balm to me to read a book in which everyone is careful and gentle with each other. When Jam’s not ready to discuss something with her parents, they don’t push; when she knows that Redemption is angry with her, she gives him space to be angry. If you know me, you know that I love boundaries, and Pet prioritizes respecting people’s boundaries. Lucille is also a wonderfully diverse world, with different languages and cultures bumping frictionlessly into each other; though Lucille has excellent medical care (we learn that Jam didn’t run into any problems getting medical care to support her gender transition as a small child), it’s unlike many fictional utopias in that it doesn’t vaunt the elimination of disability as a marker of utopia. On the contrary, Jam’s excellent librarian, Ube, uses a wheelchair to get around.

I also, predictably, am in strong favor of raising awareness about child abuse, especially child sexual abuse — which is implied to be part of what’s going on in Redemption’s house. Pet is one of a small number of YA books that talks about child sexual abuse as it actually happens, including the likelihood that victims will be met with skepticism if they report what’s going on. We also see Jam go to the library to learn from reputable sources about what it looks like when a child is being abused. Yay for research!

The not-so-good: I don’t like parables, and Pet is extremely a parable. This is a personal preference thing, obviously, because Pet isn’t trying and failing for nuts-and-bolts worldbuilding — Emezi’s making a choice here to write a parable. I’m saying parable not to suggest the book is didactic, although it is a little, but more to say that it spends more time in the realm of symbolism than your average bear. I do not personally enjoy this type of thing. (Would allegory be better to say than parable here? I don’t know. One of those!)

My other main criticism — and I wondered if this was a result of wanting the book to be YA and aging up the protagonist to come closer to the age group that the genre mostly aims at these days — is that Jam is supposed to be fifteen, and she reads to me a lot younger than fifteen. (Redemption does, too, but Jam’s our POV character, which makes it extra-noticeable.) I don’t know exactly how to quantify this, but I felt it strongly throughout my reading of the book, that not only does she seem younger than fifteen, but she’s treated younger than fifteen by the adults in her life. I kept thinking she was twelve or even ten, then flipping back to the start of the book to double-check. Did anyone else feel this way?

Despite this book not being a perfect fit for me, I still admired it as a book and Emezi as an author, and I’m excited for whatever they’re going to do next. (Hopefully not a parable/allegory thing, oh dear, those are really not for me.)

Note: I received this e-galley for review consideration from the publisher, via Netgalley. This has not influenced the contents of my review.

I was introduced to Akwaeke Emezi earlier this year through a friend of mine who was reading Freshwater. The cover drew me in and the premise intrigued me, but it was Emezi’s writing that cast the spell. There’s something about their writing and their truth that gets under your skin and into your blood and I requested an ARC of Pet while I was still in the middle of reading Freshwater. I have loved all of Emezi’s writing thus far, but Pet holds a special place for me. It’s short, sweet, and lined with razor sharp teeth.

In Pet, we meet courageous Jam and her passionate best friend Redemption. They live in the city of Lucille, where children are taught that there are no monsters, because the angels that the city reveres got rid of them. Everything is as it should be—or so it seems until Jam meets Pet, a creature of golden feathers and sharp claws and blood-streaked fur that emerges from one of her mother’s paintings. It’s natural instinct to believe that such a fearsome creature has to be a monster, but what if it isn’t?

Jam’s journey into her city’s past is filled with poignant questions and revelations about the nature of humanity and monstrosity and at the heart of Pet is the nature of truth. Not everyone has the same truth and just because your family, your friends, and your community say something is true does not make it so. To find a monster, you have to know what to look for, but you have to know something else: monsters can look like anything, even those you love.

Emezi’s rendering of Lucille is beautiful and, for better or for worse, it reminded me of growing up in the South—there are certain things that are True, there are things you don’t talk about or acknowledge, and any deviance from that gets you looked at sideways. These aspects of Lucille drive Jam’s journey and lead her into exploring her parent’s denial of what she knows to be true, questioning the actions of those who seem to mean well, and learning what it means to wear a mask—to say you’re okay when you’re not, to be brave when you don’t feel like you are, and to stand up for what you know is right even when it sets you apart.

Beneath all of these shadows is the reason that Jam fights for Lucille: she believes in it. Jam’s parents are artistic, loving, and effortlessly accepting of Jam’s identity in a way that I wish I saw more of in the world. (Jam is a trans girl with selective mutism and her parents’ approach to discovering this was perfectly simple: Jam is who she is, she is loved, and we will do what needs to be done to ensure her happiness.) Redemption’s family is loud and warm and a second home for Jam, consisting of three parents (one of whom is non-binary) and one of Lucille’s own angels. Lucille’s librarian is one of Jam’s favorite people and someone in whom I felt my own love of librarians shine through. Lucille isn’t the perfect city that it claims to be, but its potential is there. The love, the strength, and the courage to be better is there, and that’s what Jam is fighting for. She’s fighting for a better future, as we all are, and to fully realize the mantra that loops throughout the novel: We are each other’s harvest. We are each other’s business. We are each other’s magnitude and bond.

Pet feels like many things at once—as any great story does—but the balance that I adored the most was its way of being bright and refreshingly new while at the same time being strange and unsettling like something you knew was there all along but couldn’t find. It’s an ancient cautionary tale for the present day that is full of humanity in all its diversity, mercilessly honest with its questions, and unflinching in holding up a mirror to the horrors of today’s events. It’s best you dive in blind and let it make a loving home in you through Emezi’s words, not mine, so go hunt a monster. Find your truth and fight for it.