YA speculative fiction. A prequel to Emezi’s wonderful book Pet. That one is set in a city that is a generation past a revolution won under abolitionist politics (though that language is never used), while this one is set in the midst of that revolution. The protagonist of Bitter, after whom the book is named, is a student at an arts academy which serves as a haven, of sorts, for oppressed youth, though it is unclear initially how it manages that. Bitter starts the book with very conflicted feelings about those youth who are out on the front lines of struggle, but she ends up feeling the pull to support what is happening on the streets in whatever way she can, at which point…things get complicated and weird. Once again, the politics at the heart of this uprising being led by mostly Black youth are abolitionist, and this book is more overt about that fact – it even namechecks Mariame Kaba, a real-life abolitionist organizer in the US, as one of the elders of the fictional movement in this book. I really, really appreciated how effectively this book explores the, I guess, emotional dynamics of struggle, from the complicated feelings (among people in both roles) that can arise around being versus not being on the front lines in critical moments, to the powerful pull and dreadful consequences of forms of revolutionary action that in important ways betray the vision of the future held by those in struggle. I haven’t really seen them talked about in this way on bookish social media, but I maintain that Pet and Bitter would be great tools in certain kinds of teaching environments to spark discussions about important aspects of real-life grassroots politics. And like everything I have read from Emezi – with the caveat that they are very prolific, and there are a few of their books that I haven’t picked up – Bitter is a great read even aside from that.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.