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A review by caprivoyant
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
4.0
Beautiful and powerful.
Honestly, it healed a part of me that needed to pretend my own childhood abuser was caught.
And! I'm going to push back on one scene. When Pet was about to show its true face to Hibiscus, internally I was begging "please don't disfigure him, please don't disfigure him, please don't disfigure him, you've done so well saying monsters don't look any different, please don't disfigure him." And... Well, Hibiscus's eyeballs melted. 😮💨
This just perpetuates the ableist rhetoric that disfigurement or illness is a spiritual punishment or flaw. That this person is *marked* in some way. This book did so well normalizing the disability of someone who needs to use sign language! Is asking for the same for visible disabilities too much, though?
I think the story would have been stronger if he still looked the same but with maybe one almost-imperceptible difference in his appearance but had changed completely on the inside. *Le sigh*
To be clear, still a 4 star read for me. But quite disappointed in how that (spoiler) bit was handled.
And! I'm going to push back on one scene. When Pet was about to show its true face to Hibiscus, internally I was begging "please don't disfigure him, please don't disfigure him, please don't disfigure him, you've done so well saying monsters don't look any different, please don't disfigure him." And... Well, Hibiscus's eyeballs melted. 😮💨
This just perpetuates the ableist rhetoric that disfigurement or illness is a spiritual punishment or flaw. That this person is *marked* in some way. This book did so well normalizing the disability of someone who needs to use sign language! Is asking for the same for visible disabilities too much, though?
I think the story would have been stronger if he still looked the same but with maybe one almost-imperceptible difference in his appearance but had changed completely on the inside. *Le sigh*
To be clear, still a 4 star read for me. But quite disappointed in how that (spoiler) bit was handled.
Content Warnings
Minor: Ableism and Child abuse