Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

As evidenced by this picture featuring my fall decor, I picked up PET only put it down again. I was so excited to read it after Emezi's debut, Freshwater, but I didn't return to it until recently - #MiddleGradeMarch seemed like the perfect time. PET lives in a kind of limbo between middle grade and YA. It tells the story of Jam and her best friend Redemption, who live in Lucille, a utopian society where all monsters have been destroyed...or so they believe, until Pet, a monster hunter, arrives, pointing out that the most terrifying monsters don't look like monsters at all. PET is important because it reminds young people that they often see what adults choose not to, and that they can voice that. It's got great LGBTQ+ representation. It's also stunningly written:
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"Some people want to show how strong they are when they fight, they want to prove it by grinding the other person down."
You don't?
He bent her fingers one by one, cracking the
knuckles. "For what? We're both alive when we fight. We're magnificent; we're testing our aliveness against each other. How fast is your alive? How smooth is your alive? How hard, how resilient? We're alive because we can be hurt; we're alive because we can heal. I think it's beautiful. It's why I fight."
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TW: child abuse