17-year-old Bitter has grown up in different foster homes and has never felt safe. Now she's got a place at Eucalyptus, a private boarding school for young artists. Here Bitter's gained both friends and safety. But outside school there are riots and demonstrations in the town of Lucille, in protest against the great injustices. While Bitter doesn't want anything to do with the revolution, many of her friends are more active. She soon feels torn between staying within the safe walls of Eucalyptus and her wanting to help her friends. What price is she willing to pay?

A prequel to the wonderful "Pet", and I loved it just as much! It takes place before "Pet" and we get to follow Jam's mother Bitter. Her background and how she met and fell in love with Aloe, Jam's father. We also get the whole revolution that is mentioned in "Pet", and what role Jam's parents played in it. I would say you could read the books in whatever order you like, but "Pet" was written first, if you want to read in publication order.

There's a lot to like about "Bitter": the characters, the language, the diversity. I also like the message that violence isn't the solution in conflicts, and that not everyone needs to stand on the barricade or the frontline, but they still have an important role to play. This is a young adult book that many adults should read. 

This book is so much more than the 258 pages it contains. I have no idea what magic Emezi used, but this book is so developed for its length. Maybe it is because I read Pet first, so I was familiar with what was happening going into it. Since Pet was published first I chose to start with that one, and it was a great reading experience. I am so intrigued in how my experience would have differed had I read Bitter first. I do want to go back and reread Pet already (a week later) just to see what I missed out. I think either way you read this series, you will enjoy it. But you will miss certain things either way, and that's what I love about this series.

Bitter probably had the best ending I've ever read. Those last 50 pages were immaculate. I will be thinking about that ending for months. I found myself getting really emotional because of how beautiful everything was during the last 1/5 of the book. My heart was pounding, and I felt like I was really seeing it play out in my mind like the most exciting movie. I wish I could go to film school, become a world famous producer just to produce this movie like it played out in my mine. Emezi is a genius. 

Such a good book. Students make “angels” that come and fight for them. But at what cost. 

I’m not sure what to say. Pet was an incredible read and I had some trepidation as to whether Bitter would be able to follow through. Well, it absolutely did. Wow! I am blown away. Akwaeke once again has proven what masterful storytelling they are capable of. The way they intertwine real problems, and the human condition, with magic, soul, and heart. Brava. 

📖 Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi Book Review 📖

1st book of July 2022 and 15th book of the year:

This was such a powerful, fantastic, and relevant book and prequel to one of my all-time favorites, Pet. You don’t have to read Pet in order to understand this book, but I highly recommend doing so anyway because it's also such an amazing and important book. I loved that we got to go back in time to see the events talked about in Pet in this book and follow Bitter’s story this time, and it felt more mature and heavier than Pet. The writing and world-building are always phenomenal in Akwaeke Emezi’s books, and this time was no different. The themes/topics that the book brings up including revolution, healing, generational trauma, mental health, found family/coming together as a community to help each other, using art as activism, the cycle of violence, and more are all super important to talk about nowadays and always, the making it a book that I think absolutely everybody should pick up. The audiobook was also done beautifully, and it felt more mature and heavier than Pet, which was already dealing with very heavy subject matter. I highly recommend reading this and everything by Akwaeke Emezi, and I am absolutely in love with all of their book covers! TW for blood, death, self-harm/cutting, police brutality, racism, homophobia, war, hate crimes, dissociation, panic attacks, gun violence, gore, fire/fire injury, vomit, ableism, injuries/injury description, abuse, abandonment, mention of the death of a parent, mention of rape, medical content/trauma, eye mutilation, body horror, mental illness, child abuse, and grief📚🎨

I loved how this book touched on Jam's parents and how Lucille came to be. It also felt so much like what we're going through now. The civil unrest, the police brutality, and the monopoly of Jeff Bezos. While I didn't enjoy this as much as Pet, this was still a great read.