Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
Release: September 10th 2019
Format: EBook
Publisher: Make Me a World
Source: Netgalley
Pet Synopsis:
Pet is here to hunt a monster.
Are you brave enough to look?
There are no more monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. With doting parents and a best friend named Redemption, Jam has grown up with this lesson all her life. But when she meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colours 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?
In their riveting and timely young adult debut, acclaimed novelist Akwaeke Emezi asks difficult questions about what choices a young person can make when the adults around them are in denial.
Review:
Firstly, I would like to thank the publishers of Make me a world for giving me an advanced e-copy of this book for my review. I really don’t like giving negative feedback in general because I know the author and a whole team of people take a lot of time to put a book out there. Having said that, I really did not like reading the book and was very disappointing with it.
What I liked about Pet is how it highlights that even an idyllic world could be filled with monsters. Rather than facing the monster, people choose to ignore it and overprotect their loved ones to shield them from pain. I also liked the author’s style of writing, as it was simple and fairy tale like for the most part. I think that was what made me continue reading this book.
My main problem with the story was that it started off very well, but then halfway into the book, it just slowed down and nothing happened. The story just became predictable where you know what is going to happen and how the protagonist is going to save the day. Hence, I didn’t think it was very interesting because there were no twists and turns. The reader finds out who the real monster is, and the main characters just fight him, the end.
Also, I didn’t understand why the author brought up the conversation of Jam undergoing sex surgery when she was young. I guess the idea was to showcase a place and time where the characters could do such things and not feel conflicted over it. However, I did not understand what the point of it was, as it did not add anything to the story.
Moreover, I really had a problem with the names in this story. Initially, there are only 3 or 4 main characters, but halfway into the book, more characters are introduced and all have named like Bitter, Jam, Redemption, Hibiscus, Moss etc. and it was kind of confusion to keep track of who each person was. The names themselves also did not have any relevance to the story or to the personality of the characters. Initially it seemed like fun and interesting, but yeah it soon became just confusing to read. Also, I wish the author provided a backstory Jam’s parents before she was born as it was interesting.
If the author had focused more on the plot, I think this would have been much better. Overall, Pet was disappointing to read and I would give it only 2 stars.
