Starred review from June 17, 2019
Carnegie Medal–nominee Emezi (Freshwater for adults) makes their young adult debut in this story of a transgender, selectively nonverbal girl named Jam, and the monster that finds its way into their universe. Jam’s hometown, Lucille, is portrayed as a utopia—a world that is post-bigotry and -violence, where “angels” named after those in religious texts have eradicated “monsters.” But after Jam accidently bleeds onto her artist mother’s painting, the image—a figure with ram’s horns, metallic feathers, and metal claws—pulls itself out of the canvas. Pet, as it tells Jam to call it, has come to her realm to hunt a human monster––one that threatens peace in the home of Jam’s best friend, Redemption. Together, Jam, Pet, and Redemption embark on a quest to discover the crime and vanquish the monster. Jam’s language is alternatingly voiced and signed, the latter conveyed in italic text, and Igbo phrases pepper the family’s loving interactions. Emezi’s direct but tacit story of injustice, unconditional acceptance, and the evil perpetuated by humankind forms a compelling, nuanced tale that fans of speculative horror will quickly devour. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, Wylie Agency.
Starred review from July 1, 2019
Gr 7 Up-The only world Jam has ever known is that of Lucille, a town where the angels have ostensibly banished the monsters and dismantled the structures that allowed monsters and monstrous deeds to pervade. Lucille is a post-prison, post-school shooting, post-police brutality society. A society where someone like Jam, a selectively mute transgender teen, can live with complete acceptance, support, and love. Still, she can feel the hard truths of the world, can sense them in the air, hear them in words unsaid. When Jam steals into her mother Bitter's painting studio and unleashes Pet, a winged, horned, eyeless creature and monster hunter, from one of the paintings and into their world, life as she's known it begins to dissolve. Jam must confront the harsh realities of her world as she tentatively partners with Pet and ventures forward to avenge a wrong not yet discovered. This is a heart-stirring atmospheric page-turner, a terrific and terrible yet quiet adventure. Emezi spins a tale that defies categorization as strikingly as their characters, forcing readers to deeply rethink assumptions about identity, family structure, and justice. VERDICT A riveting and important read that couldn't be more well timed to our society's struggles with its own monsters.-Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, NJ
Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from July 15, 2019
Teenager Jam unwittingly animates her mother's painting, summoning a being through a cross-dimensional portal. When Pet, giant and grotesque, bursts into her life one night, Jam learns it has emerged to hunt and needs the help of a human who can go places it cannot. Through their telekinetic connection, Jam learns that though all the monsters were thought to have been purged by the angels, one still roams the house of her best friend, Redemption, and Jam must uncover it. There's a curious vagueness as to the nature of the banished monsters' crimes, and it takes a few chapters to settle into Emezi's (Freshwater, 2018) YA debut, set in an unspecified American town where people are united under the creed: "We are each other's harvest. We are each other's business. We are each other's magnitude and bond," taken from Gwendolyn Brooks' ode to Paul Robeson. However, their lush imagery and prose coupled with nuanced inclusion of African diasporic languages and peoples creates space for individuals to broadly love and live. Jam's parents strongly affirm and celebrate her trans identity, and Redemption's three parents are dedicated and caring, giving Jam a second, albeit more chaotic, home. Still, Emezi's timely and critical point, "monsters don't look like anything," encourages our steady vigilance to recognize and identify them even in the most idyllic of settings. This soaring novel shoots for the stars and explodes the sky with its bold brilliance. (Fantasy. 14-18)
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July 1, 2019
Grades 7-10 The debut title from Christopher Myers' imprint, Make Me a World, tells the story of a girl named Jam who lives in a world without evil?or so she's told. In the town of Lucille, monsters were overcome in a long-past revolution, so Jam is more than a little surprised when Pet, a creature her mom paints, comes to life and declares that he has come to hunt a monster?and he needs her help. Though a YA novel, this will appeal to readers across age ranges. Younger readers will enjoy the fantastical story line itself, while older readers will be able to look more deeply into its themes and pull out the social commentary on the hidden evils of our world that Emezi creatively weaves into the story. Just like Pet gently encourages Jam to see things unseen, to not be afraid, and to not forget, this book encourages its readers to do the same. Because as Jam notes, Yes, people forget. But forgetting is dangerous. Forgetting is how the monsters come back. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)
July 1, 2019
In a haunting work of speculative fiction incorporating African diaspara cultural markers, adolescent Jam (a transgender hearing person who communicates selectively, using both sign language and vocal speech) lives in a utopian town now free of "monsters" (oppressors and manifestations of evil). When a creature in one of her mother's paintings comes to life, Jam learns that it's hunting a monster--a monster that lives in Jam's best friend's house. The plot moves steadily as Jam investigates the creature's claims, and the story intensifies to a startling climax.
(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
November 1, 2019
A haunting and poetic work of speculative fiction-the first for young readers by adult author Emezi. Jam, the adolescent protagonist, is a transgender hearing person who communicates selectively, using both sign language and vocal speech. She was born after a revolution in which human (and some non-human) "angels" rid her now-utopian town of monsters (monster being a catch-all term for oppressors and manifestations of evil). When Jam trips over a painting made by her artist mother, she is cut with blades embedded in the work. Jam's blood hits the canvas, and the grotesque figure her mother created (described as having goat legs, a twisted torso, feathers, horns, and human hands) churns to life. The creature's name is Pet, and it has come to hunt a monster. Worse yet, this monster is said to live in the house of Jam's best friend, Redemption. The plot moves steadily as Jam investigates Pet's claims, and the story intensifies to a startling climax. The lyrical, philosophical text includes cultural markers from the African diaspora (Jam's caregivers lovingly use the French term of endearment "doux-doux"; she listens to soca music while styling her hair in twists). Its theme of deeply examining self-proclaimed bias- or harm-free spaces has contemporary relevance, yet the engrossing, open-ended narrative (with somewhat nebulous world-building) carries a universality separate from any specific place or time. A thoughtful, indelible story about truth, justice, and remembering: "Forgetting is how the monsters come back." Elisa Gall
(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)