queer voices | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi.

Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593309032

Available:: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

Bitter is a prequel to Pet. In Pet, Jam accidentally brings a monstrous angel created by her artist mother through a gate to our world, opened by her bleeding on the image. In Bitter, we learn that it isn’t the first time Jam’s mother brought an angel through.

The city of Lucille is filled with protests turned violent. Bitter, who grew up in foster homes where she felt unsafe, has found refuge in Eucalyptus, a residential school for artistic teens run by Miss Virtue . She avoids the protests, focusing on her art, believing there’s no hope for change. She meets Aloe, a sound artist training to be a street medic to help the Assatta, grassroots revolutionaries, and he starts giving her hope. I liked the idea that everyone can contribute in their own way, even if they aren’t on the front lines.

After a particularly violent protest, Bitter, who can make her art come to life briefly with blood, creates a monstrous creature and brings it to life in hopes of ending the violence. Unfortunately, the intention he sensed in her was anger, so instead of helping her stop it, he becomes an angel of Vengeance, a hunter of monsters (in this case billionaires and politicians) who wants to kill or burn away evil. When Bitter refuses to help, he convinces members of Assata to hunt with him, but despite their anger, none of them are ready for the brutal, impersonal violence of the angel.

Bitter realizes she can force him back through the gate, but the damage is done, with both innocent and not-so-innocent people dead. Bitter and the Assatta cover up the angel involvement and are able to use the incident to gain concessions and change the system to make it more equitable, the beginnings of the mostly utopian world that exists at the beginning of Pet.

Emezi wrote Bitter during the pandemic and watched their fiction come far too close to reality. They were becoming progressively more disabled while it was written: they dictated it to a friend over Zoom.

Bitter is an angrier book than Pet, and the characters are older teens: while Pet works as a middle grade book and almost a fairytale, Bitter is definitely YA. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Book Review: Dear Mothman by Robin Gow

It’s the first day of the #TransRightsReadathon, so to start it out right here’s a review of a recent favorite middle-grade novel I really enjoyed. You can’t go wrong with cryptids!

Dear Mothman by Robin Gow.

Harry N. Abrams, 2023

ISBN: 9781419764400

Available: Hardcover

Buy: Bookshop.org

This middle grade verse novel dealing with grief, identity, and monstrosity is lyrical and vivid. Sixth graders Lewis and Noah (closeted trans boys) have been best friends for years. Lewis has a great imagination and Noah is pulled along in his wake in exploring all kinds of strange things. In the time just before Lewis was killed in a car crash, he had been obsessed with cryptids, especially Mothman. Noah deals with the loss by writing journal entries to Mothman in a journal he leaves in the woods each night. He wants to believe that Mothman is real even if he can’t see him, and decides to do his science fair project on whether Mothman exists.

Noah also begins to make friends with Molly, Hanna, and Alice, and develop feelings for Hanna, while slowly coming out and deciding how much of himself, and Mothman, he wants to share.

Although he is outed to his classmates before he’s ready, the people around him accept the news pretty quickly, even if they don’t entirely understand. Unfortunately, they are not as accepting of the existence of Mothman, which leads him to run away to do a solitary search in the woods that changes him, helps him deal with his grief over Lewis, and move forward.

Noah is autistic and that comes through clearly and is written with respect and sensitivity, as is the bisexuality of two of the characters.

Noah’s grappling with monstrosity, magic, and the unknown isn’t subtle, but Gow gets the kinds of thoughts on paper that you would expect a journal of private thoughts (or written to a cryptid of dubious existence) to contain. In the acknowledgements. Gow credits a childhood fascination with monsters with his ability to understand his own identity. Recommended for grades 5-8.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski