When I first received Pet from Netgalley as an arc, I went into it expecting an entirely different story. Still, I was not disappointed. Jam’s releasing of Pet, the urging of her loving parents to send him back, her need to keep him, and his subsequent actions, all seemed to have a symbolic meaning to me. Jam unknowingly released Pet into the world and the only way of doing that was with her own pain. Very often, the actions that we take to save others, especially those that we love, cost us ourselves in some way. Whether it be through a pain of heart, an unwanted exposure, or actual physical pain. In Jam’s case, the only way to do this, was to bleed.
On the peaceful island (or town but it feels like an island to me) that Jam lives in, the mainstay is that there are no monsters in Lucille. Sound familiar…
So, if you’re familiar Fievel (pictured above), then you know that there were in fact still cats in America, ready and willing to devour their next blissfully naive rodent victim. Jam’s parents as well everyone else in Lucille are convinced that there are no monsters left and will not listen to anyone who says otherwise. When Pet tells Jam that he is in deed hunting monsters, Jam’s parents tell her to get rid of him because with no one left to hunt, he was useless. Jam on the other hand, is not so sure that all of the monsters are truly gone. Due to this, she is willing to work with someone she believes looks like one, to stop another who threatens the household of her best friend.
Despite the constant claims of peace by the people who are called angels, all is not well in Lucille… And it is because of one of them. Yes, an ‘angel’, a defender of right and a champion of justice, is in fact the very thing they fought so very hard to rid themselves of. The adults in the story, even those who didn’t earn an angelic title, refuse to believe that their hard-fought victories could have allowed for some of the evil they hated so much, to attach itself to them and escape. Even when a young child witnesses first hand what the faux angel can do, he is silence by those who were supposed to protect him, with the same over sung chant. There are no monsters in Lucille. But, there were still monsters left and the only person who could stop them, was a being that appeared to be more monstrous than they ever could, proving the old adage true. The beast will only fear the beast, that is stronger than the beast…
