Anyhow, Pet is adamant that a monster is ‘hiding’ in Redemption’s house. Do monster-hunters always emerge from paintings? What happens if no one paints anything? Do they exist before the painting in another dimension? How are the painters able to depict them if they never saw them? How often does this happen? I do not know. Apparently, this (scary things popping out of paintings) has happened before but we don’t really learn the details of why/when/how. This creature, Pet, is a monster hunter who speaks in a painfully ‘i’m not human’ way that brought to mind Yoda from Star Wars. Her blood brings forth the clawed and monstrous-looking creature her mother had depicted in said painting. Her mother is an artist and one-day Jam bleeds on one of her paintings. She has loving parents and a best-friend named Redemption (all of their names are like this…why? not sure). Jam, our protagonist, is a child who lives in Lucille. Apparently, monsters (what kind of monsters? i’m not sure) are no longer a thing and have been banished or annihilated by badass looking angels (when? how? not sure). Pet opens with some pages of exposition which paint a rather vague dystopian picture. I couldn’t help but feel that at times the tone and content of these two books didn’t always quite mesh well together. I had a similar experience when I read All Our Hidden Gifts, Caroline O’Donoghue’s foray into the MG/YA genre. 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.Pet is my second book by Akwaeke Emezi and while I did find it to be an engaging read it didn’t quite hit me the way as their The Death of Vivek Oji did.

Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption’s house. 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. With doting parents and a best friend named Redemption, Jam has grown up with this lesson all her life. There are no more monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Well, little girl, it replied, I suppose you can call me Pet. Well, she said, her hands only a little shaky, at least tell me what I should call you. She stumbled backwards, her eyes wide, as the figure started coming out of the canvas

How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?

Pet akwaeke