stunning, stunning, stunning in its spirit and simplicity. akwaeke emezi’s pet introduces us to lucille, an american town with its meat chopped off. this world is made of bones, all slick and shiny and saying: this is it. this is truth, now. these are the good and the strong and the honest bits. it is a false utopia of extremities, but a town made of angels is a town in vile want of humanity.

there is a reverence to emezi’s world-building and a fluidity of prose that combine to mark pet with an almost mythic sensibility; it reads as though it is being passed from palm to palm around a fireplace. it belongs to that tradition of Black fantastical existence wherein—before we are even introduced to the titular pet—emezi is able to conjure an off-kilter, spirit-tinted, magical strain of the earth that we understand.

and then we are introduced to pet. in this sanctimonious land of purity and angelic beings, pet arrives—born of art, in no coincidence—to find, and to hunt, a monster. emezi uses this black-and-white framing of angels versus monsters to dissect how those who enact harm—particularly in insidious ways, and particularly in domestic settings—so often occupy spaces coded as inherently noble and good. in pet, the ‘noble’ space is a town that has quite literally been ‘purged of evil’. in life, these infestations of harm find homes in so many institutions that promise to act ‘for good’; the healthcare system, police stations, churches.

it is so indescribably vital that such a text as this exists for young adult readers. pet is a marvel, not only for its tenderly-wrought exploration of CSA, but for its frank discussion around how abuse is and ought to be addressed within communities (and, in this instance, a Black community in particular), its refusal to look down on young adult audiences, and for the wonderful representation that it offers.

rich with the promise of a better future, and full with a belly of history, pet is at times both hopeful and heavy in balancing these two inevitabilities. gorgeously written with thorough intentionality, pet is a blessing for both young and adult audiences.

I have to say, I'm glad I didn't give up on this story. I was torn between to or not to DNF this one, because on one hand the character's stories and representation and the subject matter of grief and the anguish that comes with it are invaluable and, to miss out on this story that I'd hoped to recommend to the little brown boys and girls that might miss it held my heart strings tight. But on the other hand, it took 40 CHAPTERS to stop feeling like I was rewatching The Vampire Diaries series. Open references to twilight weren't helping either, but after reframing my lense to know this is on the upper end of YA and get into what teenage Madi would say, I ate this right on up leaving no crumbs. The originality does shine through in the end and the history and representation on many fronts definitely redeemed this for me and I'm excited to see where Bree and the rest of the characters go from here.