Welcome to Litsy!

I‘ve been leaning into creative projects recently, and crochet has been one of them, offering me comfort in the repetition of the process. Unusually for me, I‘ve also turned to audiobooks while I crochet. This is the most recent one. It‘s a very timely read in a way, a reminder that no community is always safe for all, especially if we actively ignore elements of society which are uncomfortable to pay attention to. ⬇️

This is such an important book, for abused kids, for trans kids, for kids in general - because let‘s be honest, people are constantly trying to just shut kids up and keep them from speaking truth to power. Of course that power and those who are power hungry are trying to silence this, too.
#AkwaekeEmezi #Pet #lgbtq #abusedkids #truthtopower #audiobook #bannedbook #ireadbannedbooks #bannedbooksweek

Just because I like pissing off white supremacists! - I am straight up behind on this week, but I read banned books year round, so I guess it‘s okay.
#AkwaekeEmezi #Pet #Audiobook #BannedBooksWeek

Book 106/100 of the year.

The story of a girl who lives in a world where monsters do not exist. At least, that's what the adults say. But Jam has met a monster whose job it is to hunt down a person hurting a child to save the child and Jam must help.

It is a great books that discusses that monsters do not always look the way we expect them to be.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I'm behind on reviews!😬 Brilliant. Tad too short.

15yo Jam lives in a town free of monsters. The angels before her made sure of it, and everyone is free to be themselves & live peacefully. Or so they think. Jam accidentally brings to life one of her mother's paintings, and Pet steps from the canvas with a dire warning. It seems people have forgotten what a monster can look like, and Pet has one goal: hunt the monster lurking in Lucille.

Read for my not a bookclub bookclub - I dragged my feet getting started and ended up absolutely loving it - I went with the audio, narrated by Christopher Meyers who was an absolute delight to listen to.

This is a story about a place that was purged of monsters (people who did bad things) and subsequently went job done - and tried very hard to overlook people doing harmful things to others.

Enter Pet, summoned accidentally through a painting.

I wanted to try to get at least one book read in support of the #TransRightsReadathon & this was on my #TBR & available on Libby. YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi with the main character Jam, a black trans girl. Short, powerful & moving, about how when we tell ourselves monsters don‘t exist anymore we forget to look for them/stop seeing them. I loved this quote:”…forgetting is dangerous. Forgetting is how the monsters come back.” So relatable to current times.⬇️

#TransRightsReadathon Day 2
Pet is the story of the world after the social justice revolution succeeds but people become complacent. It does a fabulous job of exploring ideas of willful ignorance & the inability to believe people within your personal circle are at fault, all in a way that‘s age appropriate for young readers but still subtle and nuanced.

Title: Pet
Author: Akwaeke Emezi
Published: September 10th, 2019
Genre: young adult, fantasy, fiction.
Awards: Stonewall Book Award
Summary: This is a book that has a utopian setting. in the book everything seems so perfect on the outside but little do you know that it is actually full of monsters.

This is haunting in an engaging cultural commentary way. Can you see the monsters in the world when people claim they are all gone? Are you brave enough to look? What choice will you make if you do?
Jam and Pet and Redemption are quite a fantastical team for this YA novel. I am super excited to read the prequel, Bitter.

This fantasy/magical realism YA novel completely has my ❤️. Can‘t wait to read more titles from this writer!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Full review on Goodreads

Another great read to get my second #BookSpinBingo for August. A very dark read but with a great message and characters diversity (main character is a Black transgender girl and her best friend has three parents) which I found really awesome. A definite pick for me!

@TheAromaOfBooks I had high hopes this will advance me in the Q3 #PromptMaze but it didn't, because the cell I'm stuck on now wants a person or place name and Pet is neither 😁

I think this is an important story—about the evils of complacency and the urgency of mutual responsibility—with a fascinating premise—a utopia where the “monsters” have all been eradicated, a creature who claims a monster is nearby, a brave young Black transgirl heroine. That said, this was a slow read, even at 200 pages, and I felt the pacing was to blame, but Emezi does a great job putting you in their 12-year-old heroine‘s perspective.

In Lucille there aren‘t any monsters. The Angels took care of the monsters during the Revolution. One day Jam meets Pet, a monster hunter. Pet says there‘s a monster in Lucille. How can this be true? Jam still decides to help Pet find the monster.

3rd book read for #JoysOfJune
@Andrew65

There shouldn‘t be any monsters left in Lucille.
The city used to have them, of course-what city didn‘t? They used to be everywhere, thick in the air and offices, in the streets and In people‘s own homes. They used to be the police and teachers and judges and even the mayor; yeah, the mayor used to be a monster.

(This reminded me so much of the pictured scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that entire episode.)

4 out of 5

I just grabbed whatever I had in my nightstand for a bookmark, haven‘t bothered to swap it out. 🤷‍♀️

Y‘all this book was so good and full of hope despite being extremely dark. I would definitely suggest reading it before handing it to any kids just to make sure you know what exactly kind of questions they‘ll be bringing your way afterwards. It‘s such a fantastic book and deals with some very heavy content in a way that kids are totally able to understand. Just phenomenal

Y‘all I met the librarian character Ube and he‘s immediately my favourite character in this book. He has a line “Ain‘t no grown-up in the whole of Lucille grown enough to tell you you don‘t deserve answers to your questions.” And I felt that line in my bones. It‘s exactly what a librarian or a teacher or a collector of information should be.

I read this book and I did not realize it was by the author of Freshwater. I read Freshwater when it was first released and I wish I had read Pet first. While the books are not about the same characters it helped me understand Freshwater a bit better.

I loved -
The premise
Characters names (Jam, Glass,, Moss, Aloe, Bitter, Redemption? So good.)

What I didn't -
I cannot pinpoint what it was that I didn't like but I was somehow both impressed with their storyline and bored? I had a hard time picking it up and on the whole it took me much longer to read then it should have.

Don't really have much of a review for this one. Just definitely worth reading, especially considering how it tackles the issue of complacency, even in an assumed utopia.

They don't make evil like they used to.

#curiouscovers: buildings #LittenListen

There were so many aspects of this book I loved. I think my favorite was the normalization of non-binary characters and non-hetero, multiple partner relationships.

The plot itself was engaging and satisfying, and the creature scary and relatable.

This is a bookclub pick, and I look forward to discussing it.

4/5 for this heart wrenching story. This was such a sad good book. I just loved Pet and Jam. Redemption was an awesome character too. This story just pulls at your heart. I do recommend reading it.

Finished this one! Lots of mixed thoughts on it, but ultimately this is one I would probably recommend. A quick read! Thanks for another great round of #LMPBC ! I'll get this shipped out this week 💜
@TheBookKeepers @Erinreadsthebooks @ads0123

Got Pet in today! Should be able to quickly knock this out 💜 #LMPBC #Round11
@TheBookKeepers @ads0123 @Erinreadsthebooks

Finished! I‘ll mail this tomorrow @kellyann28 @Erinreadsthebooks @ads0123 #lmpbc

This is way weirder than I could even imagine. Enjoying it!

This arrived today! #lmpbc @Erinreadsthebooks @ads0123 @kellyann28

This YA book is so strong and fierce. I loved it. A mythic creature enters Jam‘s work to hunt a monster (think racist, abuser, molester), even though all of them had supposedly been eradicated decades earlier. This book does not mess around. Terrific lgbtq/black/trans culture. It‘s a world so easy to appreciate. And worth fighting for.

This middle grade novel tackles some tough topics, but also conveys the message that you can‘t judge a book by its cover. Sometimes what looks scary can be safe and sometimes what seems safe can be dangerous. Audiobook narrator was great. 4⭐️

Good incorporation of trans/non-binary genders.
Life in the future town is a little too twee for my taste; a lot of casual touches to offer comfort and express sympathy or joy. I was surprised by how uncomfortable reading that hyper-empathy way of living made me because it did seem like the sort of life society should strive for.

Overall a well done, imaginative “good vs. evil” plot.

This #dogsoflitsy is my own “pet” angel.

#queer #lgbtq

Finally got a chance to get to this one. It was on The Time‘s 100 Best Fantasy List. I‘m slowly working my way through the list.

This is a world without monsters. Angels came down and cleared them all away, locked them up, etc. (not clear exactly). This is a middle grade/YA book. They seemed young, but there was lots of swearing. A hunter shows up and Jam has to help find the monster. I was a little confused at times, but overall I enjoyed it.

This was soooo good!! What a world! Like, it felt so original but also so obvious once you‘re in it? Absolutely fantastic, I loved this book.

#BlackHistoryMonth #2021 #BlackAuthors #LGBTQ #DogsOfLitsy

The premise of this book is extremely interesting. This letter is the first page, before the story starts.

I‘ve never read a “Make Me a World” book before. I‘m really glad to have picked up this book. I hope I like it.

#LibraryBookhaul - I have so many books I need to read right now, but I got another library stack in 🤦‍♀️

They put books in quarantine for a week if they are from another library, which means they all really come in at once 🤷🏻‍♀️

#InspiredNewYear Day 27: The tartufo pizza with buratta cheese looks #Scrumptious - doesn‘t it?

#QuotsyJan21 Day 16: #Inflexible

Loved this strange and indescribable ride! Such an important book and a symbol of the hope and diversity of thought I hope is a trend to come in the book world ❤️

One of my shadow goals is to read more middle grade books because it's been 30 years since I left that category behind. Pet seems to be solidly on the border between middle grade and YA, with a memorable protagonist, a close friendship, and a town that claims they got rid of all the monsters....

I bought the hardcover last year in a bundle from sistah scifi but as I read this I discovered the paperback comes out on the 19th!

"It was no small thing to try to restructure a society, to find the pus boiling away under the scabs, to peel back the hardened flesh to let it out."

Already close to a bingo! This is what happens when you put off lesson plans I guess. Once again I finish the #doublespin first, but mostly because my #bookspin hasn‘t arrived yet.
This book was short and powerful! I loved the message and even being a quick read it had excellent characters and a cool premise. I also loved the use of monsters in this book and the double meaning of that word.

I really couldn‘t ask for a better evening. Good book and a good boy. 📖 🐶

This is an interesting and very strange book, and I find it difficult to write a review about it. For the first half, I was bewildered and a bit frustrated. The writing is awkward (I thought it was a translation, but it is not). The character names are not names as we know them, which forced my brain to rewire itself in a way to get used to people being referred to as Redemption, Glass, Aloe, Bitter, etc. But by halfway through I was ALL IN.

Pick-up 'Pet'⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5! With unexpected help, Jam bravely faces hard truths in order to protect the people that she loves!

So glad there's a book where black, trans, and neurodivergent youth can read themselves as the protagonist and see they deserve a world that believes, loves, and protects them 💕💕#LGBTQ #YA

Tw: CSA as a major topic (*non graphic descriptions), mentions: police violence, suicide, body horror, eye trauma, sexual assault