by Akwaeke Emezi
Alfred A. Knopf Books
01/19/2021, paperback
SKU: 9780593175446
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST - STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER - ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by The New York Times - Time - Buzzfeed - NPR - New York Public Library - Publishers Weekly - School Library Journal
A genre-defying novel from the award-winning author NPR describes as "like [Madeline] L'Engle...glorious." A singular book that explores themes of identity and justice. Pet is here to hunt a monster. Are you brave enough to look?
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?
A riveting and timely young adult debut novel that asks difficult questions about what choices you can make when the society around you is in denial.
Target age: 12 and up
Reviews:
"[A] beautiful, genre-expanding debut... Pet is a nesting doll of creative possibilities." -- The New York Times
"Emezi's characters are diverse in race, physical ability and especially gender... Readers might see in Jam's surroundings a version of a world that they, like Jam, might choose to fight for." -- BookPage, Starred Review
"A riveting and important read that couldn't be more well timed to our society's struggles with its own monsters." -- School Library Journal, Starred Review
"With great tenderness, Pet questions a society silenced by denial." -- Observer
About the Author:
Akwaeke Emezi makes their young adult debut with Pet on the inaugural Make Me a World list. An honoree on the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" list, a long-list nominee for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and a short-list nominee for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, Akwaeke continues to receive accolades for their adult debut, Freshwater. The autobiographical novel also received rave reviews from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Times, among others, as well as starred reviews from Library Journal and Booklist.