Tuesday, August 18, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Pet by Akwaeke Emezi


Pet is a short YA novel by author Akwaeke Emezi, and I do mean short - the press for this story treats it as a novel, but I believe in length it's shorter than more than a few "novellas" I've read recently.  Whatever you want to call it, Pet is a fascinating novel for our times - featuring a seemingly utopian world in which the monsters of society - including the police, the corrupt governments, and those who would oppress and discriminate - have been removed from society, leaving a society that is seemingly open for everyone to be themselves and live happy fulfilling lives.  It's a story about how even in such a circumstance, there may still be monsters, and pretending otherwise and forgetting the past will only result in monsters returning to prominence and people being hurt.  So yeah, this one may be short, but its got a clear prevailing theme that works really well.


------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
The monsters of the world are gone - at least from the City of Lucille.  Or so Jam, a young teenage girl, has been taught for her whole life: the monsters - beings who oppressed others for who they were, who took joy in or didn't care about harming others, who wouldn't leave people alone - were defeated in her parents' era, and removed from society by the Angels - humans and otherwise who finally fought back and won.  And so Jam has never seen a monster and has no idea what they might even have once looked like, and has grown up in an idyllic childhood with her parents, along with her friend, a boy named Redemption.

But when Jam's mother - a painter - paints a creature with scary looking features, the creature comes to life when Jam accidentally bleeds on it.  And the creature, who calls itself Pet, insists that Monsters may still exist and one is very present in Lucille - and not just in Lucille, but in her friend Redemption's very house.  But how can Jam find such a monster if she doesn't know what it looks like?  And even if she could find it, would anyone really believe her when she tries to tell them that monsters not only still exist, but live right in their midst?
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The City of Lucille is in utopian in many ways.  There is no religion (having been disregarded as causing conflicts apparently), but people of all kinds can live together however they want, without any fear of being looked down upon for their own identity.  Take Jam for instance - she's a black trans girl who revealed her gender identity at the age of 3, and her parents don't even blink about the revelation, taking the necessary steps to provide her with the hormones she will need and providing her with support when she decides to undergo surgery.  Jam's best friend Redemption lives with a poly family of three parents, all of whom are loving, to go along with a bevy of aunts and uncles who all care for each other.  And the other people in the town are all supportive even when they might think the kids are potentially going down the wrong path, such as the librarian who provides the material - no matter how disturbing or scary - that Jam requests when her curiosity makes her wonder at the times before.

But in a world in which the monsters (who in this world for obvious reasons include police, government officials, etc.) have been vanquished and everything seems ideal, would anyone recognize if "monsters" come back?  Monsters are simply humans who harm others, and the idea that removing the ones of the past will prevent new ones from coming, even in an ideal world, is clearly flawed.  And yet, it's an idea that is incredibly appealing and the adults of Lucille hang on to it.

But Jam - as a child who hasn't seen anything else - can't help but worry that this isn't true.  And so despite her insisting that everything must be perfect, when confronted by Pet - who is horrifying to look at himself and who she has no reason to trust - with the idea that a monster still exists among people she knows so well, she refuses to commit fully to her parent's idea that everything is perfect.  And yet when Jam finds out that Pet is correct (not really a spoiler) and that monsters are still in existence, she knows that she can't simply follow her parents example and try to eliminate the monster and then pretend everything is good until the next monster shows up.  Jam's circumstances growing up are an ideal that would be nice to see in real life, but it doesn't prevent her from acting to try and ensure that those ideals stay real.

"Forgetting is how the monsters come back."  That's a quote from early in this novel and its essential central thesis.  No matter how much humanity progresses and improves in justice and ideals, if we forget what happened before - what people did to each other and why - those ideals will not hold, as the past will return.  Even a perfect world like that of "Pet" requires constant vigilance, and we do not live in such a perfect world.  Pet is not a dark novel, despite what the monster actually turns out to be here, but it's a serious one at its heart with a serious message.  And as such, it's well worth reading both for the dream and the message, which is conveyed effectively in its short package.
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