#24 in Middle grade
Pet
- 208
- Pages
- about 4 h
- Reading time
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Our view
Akwaeke Emezi’s “Pet” is a brief, strange and thoughtful young adult fantasy that stands apart from the usual run of teen fiction. Where readers of the genre might expect a dystopia, it starts from something closer to a utopia, and the surprise is part of its force. The mood is dark and moving, with family at its centre. It runs to about two hundred pages, and a prequel, “Bitter”, followed.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Pet is a 2019 young adult fantasy/speculative fiction novel by Nigerian non-binary author Akwaeke Emezi. It was followed by a prequel Bitter, released in 2022.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.3 across 157 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 51% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Middle grade average of 8.0. That is how 8.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.3 | 6 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 8.3 | 151 | 96% |
Frequently asked
What age is Pet for?
Pet sits on the Middle grade shelf in the sources we use, which by convention means roughly ages 8–12. This is a guide from the book’s category, not a publisher’s age rating. It has 208 pages — shorter than 98% of the ranked books in Middle grade.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Middle grade — with scores between 7.9 and 8.4, closest to this book.
