I Want One: Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Pet (2019)
Written by: Akwaeke Emezi
Genre: Fantasy/Young Adult
Pages: 204 (Paperback)
Publisher: Random House

Why I Chose It: We get a lot of Advance Reader Copies at the bookstore — this happened to be one of them. But if you dangle a book featuring a blood-summoned monster from a painting in front of me, I’m going to read it regardless.

The premise:

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?

No spoilers.

Discussion: When I first started reading this I was a little thrown off. Are we on Earth? Is this America? We’re in a city called Lucille with plenty of references to things that occur in the world we all currently live in. School shootings, shootings stemming from racism, “horrible statues of rich men who’d owned people and fought to keep owning people.” If that’s not a reference to the Civil War Confederate statues in the south, I don’t know what is. All of these are mentioned as things that existed in the past before being wiped out completely for a new, better place to live. I don’t remember if the book ever states what country this is in. Does it matter? I think it does a little. As a reader, I want to know if I’m in a fantasy world or the real world. If the details of past awful deeds weren’t quite as specific as they are, I’d chalk it up to generic fantasy location. And when I mean “fantasy” I don’t necessarily mean somewhere like Narnia. I just mean somewhere that is clearly not locked into a place on this Earth. Maybe that’s nitpicky, but that’s just me. I finally settled on “future utopia-like place probably in America” and went about my day.

I really liked the diversity in this book. Not just dealing with skin color, but in the wide variety of types of people; Jam doesn’t speak because she chooses not to, and she is also transgender. Jam’s best friend Redemption loves to fight. Not for the violence of it, but for the discipline and for how it keeps his body in good condition. Redemption’s family is a close-knit one with aunts and uncles, and Redemption also has three parents to speak of; a father, a mother, and Whisper, who uses the pronoun “their.” Once again, just like with Our Bloody Pearl, I really do wish the English language had a genderless singular pronoun. “Their” and “they” still occasionally scramble my brain when referring to a specific person, but it also somehow feels impersonal. And besides, don’t they deserve it?

Anywho, I’m getting off track. Along with the lovely patchwork quilt of humans this book has, the names are also rather unique. Jam herself, whose parents are Bitter (father) and Aloe (mother), while Redemption has people around him named Beloved, Malachite (ok, not so strange, but I’ve always thought that’s an awesome name), Hibiscus, Glass, and Moss. All of which are pretty cool.

When Pet emerges onto the pages (and it doesn’t take long), I really enjoyed the description we’re treated to. Fashioned from a painting — with a bit of mixed media thrown in — and brought forth by blood, Pet is here to make things right and take care of a monster that has wormed its way into Lucille. It’s big, with horns and claws and gold and feathers, and I want to see fanart of it. I also really liked Pet’s mindset. All about hunting down monsters and extinguishing them. Its overall personality. You never know what exactly Pet is or where it comes from — until you get an inkling at the end. Even then you’re not completely sure, but that’s okay. And Jam gets extra points for standing her ground at the end and telling Pet important things it needs to hear and understand.

Naturally no one wants to believe that monsters still exist, which is a dangerous thought to have — and one that so many people carry today. “Oh, so-and-so would never hurt anyone!” and yet here we are. In a way, it almost makes Jam’s world slightly more dangerous to live in, although I don’t know all the rules. I don’t know how the people in charge are able to ferret out “monsters.” Everyone is so certain that they’re all gone and teach all their children that they don’t exist; how could they fathom the concept of one appearing? Jam herself even has this conundrum, with Pet insisting there is a monster within Redemption’s home, but when she visits she can see nothing. How can an evil thing exist within a house of so much love? And who is to say that more won’t appear later on?

I’m also quite intrigued with Bitter and Aloe’s reaction to Pet — as well as what they have to say about Pet’s existence. The book is short, so I won’t spoil it; suffice to say I would read that story if it were written.

In Conclusion: It’s a short read, but a strong one. It’s a reminder to listen, to pay attention, and to believe when the time comes — in all manner of things. If you’re in the market for the sort of book that isn’t like anything else, go pick this one up off the shelf.