Pet

Pet
By Akwaeke Emezi
Make Me a World, 2019. 204 pages. Young Adult

Seventeen-year-old Jam lives in a future society that claims to have gotten rid of all monstrous people. Everyone lives in peace and safety, and there’s no reason not to trust your neighbor. One evening Jam goes down to her mother’s studio to sneak a peek at one of her new paintings. However, an accident in the studio summons the giant horned creature in the painting from another dimension, and Jam wonders how she can hide the creature from her parents. Unfortunately, the creature, who dubs itself “Pet,” has other plans. There’s a monster in Jam’s world that Pet has been sent to hunt, and it needs Jam’s help to figure out who the monster is.

This is a thought-provoking read with a very specific focus. Very little is said about how the society was perfected, only that it was. Pet’s existence proves this is false. The focus is on monsters, both Pet and the person he’s hunting. Jam and Pet have to investigate the people around them, but because Jam has lived in a world where “evil” no longer exist, she doesn’t know how to identify it. It’s an interesting exploration of how one finds something when lacking points of reference.

 Even though her naïveté makes this feel like a younger YA novel, the subject matter and some of the language might skew this toward a more mature YA audience. That said, I felt it was overall both a compelling and insightful read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

ACS