It’s a town populated by black people from the diaspora with an angel for a mayor. They imagine this town where there are no prisons, no police. Lucille is an interesting imagination on the author’s part. Brutally murdered activist beautifully remembered.But after the appearance of Pet, a creature whose mandate is to hunt monsters, Jam starts questioning everything she has been told about her reality while the two of them hunt for a monster that is supposedly hiding in her friend Redemption’s house. It appears that the town is free of this evil. The “monsters” are representative of all we consider evil: rapists, child molesters, thieves and so on. Lucille is a town forged by love and acceptance. In PET we meet Jam, a young girl who lives in a town called Lucille, where there are no more monsters as the angels rid the town of them before Jam was born. But debut young adult novel PET explores how fractured societies are in denial of this splintered state. Thematically, Freshwater is about fractured selves. I will live many lives when they take me out of it.” These words not only prime you for the riotous story about to unfold but with their poetic entry, Emezi lets you know that you have entered the realm of a formidable writer.
I lived many lives before they put me in this body. And Akwaeke Emezi’s PET offers just that.Įmezi’s astonishingly haunting debut novel, Freshwater, opens with, “I have lived many lives inside this body. Young people are ravenous for stories that meditate on their multifaceted worlds, that reflect their otherness but also offer the imagination of new possibilities. This narrative shift is a reflection of the change in social consciousness in the past few years, during the time of #FeesMustFall and #BlackLivesMatter.
Consider The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower and, most recently, Who Put This Song On by Morgan Parker. But over the past few years, there has been a significant proliferation of young adult fiction that centres itself in marginal experiences and conflict. Many may think young adult novels are rooted in fantasy or thriller narratives.
0 kommentar(er)
