Queer Youth BC - PET by Akwaeke Emezi

Hello! It's Abby Shea, and I'm stoked to be reading Pet by Akwaeke Emezi with you this March. This book feels timely for a lot of reasons. It's speculative fiction which imagines a utopia that might exist in name only. 

"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." (Book Page)

How do you share the truth when the world is in denial?

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption , have grown up with the lesson that the city is safe for everyone. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature who some might call monstrous, but in reality is anything but, she must reconsider what she's been told. Pet has emerged from one of her mother's paintings to hunt a true monster--and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption's house. 

This award winning novel from a rising star author asks: What really makes a monster, and how do you save the world from something if no one will admit it exists?

"Like [Madeleine] L'Engle, Akwaeke Emezi asks questions of good and evil and agency, all wrapped up in the terrifying and glorious spectacle of fantastical theology." (NPR)

Books are available in-store @ 10% off. You can also support us by listening on Libro. 

We missed our February meeting, so we're also going to talk about Gabe Cole Novoa's The Wicked Bargain.