I am always sceptical to review books. This is because I believe books are incredibly personal things that speak to us at different times in different ways. So it is always hard to make a decision on a book, not only for me because I will change my mind, but because I will also be influencing someone else’s perception on the book.

With that being said, I have been wanting to get into reviewing books for quite some time, if not to just give others feedback on the books I read but also as a reminder to myself for why I enjoyed some books and others not so much.

To make this first review easy for myself (and you) I decided to start with a book I actually loved and enjoyed and that book is “Pet” by Akwaeke Emezi.

So here is “Pet” in a nutshell with hopefully not too many spoilers: Pet is a story that is set against the futuristic town Lucile, a town that has managed to rid itself of all its monsters. The story follows Jam, the protagonist, her best friend Redemption and their new hunter “friend” Pet who is in Lucile to hunt for a monster despite Lucile having no monsters.

The story then chronicles Jam, Pet and Redemption journeying through Lucile and finding this so-called monster. The book, in my opinion is a wonderful story about friendship. I think there are a lot of themes but the one that reached its gentle hand out of the pages and embraced me tenderly was the theme of friendship.

 This is my second book by the author and I fell head over heels for their first book and this book was no different. I really enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed the very descriptive names, I think it is because I am mostwana and our names tend be very descriptive and sometimes we tend to name children based on the events surrounding their birth or conception, so I was all for the very descriptive names.

I also enjoyed how the author took the time out to not only make the book inclusive and diverse but to do it in a way in which what would be seen as “other” was not the focal point of a character but merely a “by the way”. Jam for example didn’t speak much as she much rather preferred signing and that was what the reader got. There was no long drawn out story about how this has affected her life, no tales of struggling to make friends and communicate, none of that. It was simply a by the way and we got to focus on how smart and kind Jam was. 

The book is about child abuse although this is never explicitly explored in the book but I think it is a credit to Akwaeke’s writing that the book doesn’t feel that heavy all the time. Even Pet who is here to hunt the monster is equal parts scary and sassy. I found myself reading the book and then trying to guess Pet’s reaction.

The wonderful thing that this book does is it leaves us with the question of what do we do with monsters. Do we condemn monsters for life? Do we try and rehabilitate the monsters or do we give monsters the ultimate punishment which is death? I enjoyed that I was made to explore my rage at the monsters and then under the same breath made to tap into another side of considering alternative ways in which we can deal with monsters.

In summary I think this is an important book and I am so grateful to the author for writing it.

Please let me know what you think of this book review and how you think I can improve in the future.

Thank you again for reading, until next time – be kind more times than you think is necessary.