Reviews

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

alifeuls's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

jassiecones's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

shesreadingagain_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Child abuse

madge27's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

forever_fantasy's review

emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

hobbit_tomes's review against another edition

inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

 "Also, the problem is, when you think you've been without monsters for so long, sometimes you forget what they look like, what they sound like, no matter how much remembering your education urges you to do. It's not the same when the monsters are gone. You're only remembering shadows of them, stories that seem to be limited to the pages or screens you read them from...So, yes, people forget. But forgetting is dangerous. Forgetting is how the monsters come back."

This book was fantastic and I wish I had read it sooner. This story does such a great job of showing how dangerous it can be when people become complacent and blindly believe in a fantasy that all 'monsters' have been taken care of.

One of my favorite moments in this book was when Jam was pleading with Pet to not kill Hibiscus because doing so would harm the movement and lead to more people, particularly children being hurt and abused in the long run. It's so well done, because it's true, that killing people who commit crimes is not justice and it doesn't prevent more 'monsters' from emerging in the future. The most important things is to hold people accountable, educate the masses, and enact preventative measures to minimize the chance of it happening again. Waiting until someone is already hurt and then killing the 'monster' doesn't solve the root of the problem.

 

All in all, a haunting yet incredibly important story that more people should read. 

CW/TW: Child Abuse (implied/mentioned), Rape (past mention), Sexual Assault of a child (implied/mentioned) 

gina_readsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

sobremesa18's review

5.0

"Monsters don't look like anything. That's the whole point. That's the whole problem." That was an unexpected cry.

sonaea's review against another edition

idk. some very interesting aspects in it but also some I didn't totally agree with. it's worth a read however it takes one thinking about it for it to really be a worthful read. and the end I don't know I don't really agree with

the kind of penalty he got. like, is it absolutely horrible? of course. but do we blind people - or like make able-bodied people disabled - if they did something (very) bad? No. i do not believe that what help the situation. first of all it would probably make the evil people even more angry and ever and second of all it would make it difficult for people to discern whether or not a person is actually disabled because they are disabled or if they are disabled because they did something bad. therefore disabled people would not profit from the situation but rather be even more discriminated against than they are ready are.

I do not believe that could be the right path to take no matter how bad the thing was the person did.
all in all however there were some very interesting things happening in the book and some thoughts that are truly worth thinking about and maybe to include some of those actions in your own life.
also I'm kind of confused because the book says that people can change. however there are those monsters that are people that I don't know don't seem like people think they can change? so ... yeah. it feels like it is measured on two different bars. that only the good people can change and the bad can't and okay maybe one can aregue that there are people that change and that there are people that do not change, however the book makes it seem very easy to differentiate between which people can and which people can't change and which people are good and which people aren't. the world in this book is kind of working with boxed categories of good and evil more than I am comfortable with. without wanting to talk die actions of the evil guy any better than they are (because they aren't!) I still think the system the way of thinking that is used screw out the book is very definitive and therefore kind of problematic.

orionreads127's review

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5