To ease her sorrows and fears, she began relying on her artwork. For years, she moved from house to house and family to family. The following summary adheres to a linear mode of explanation.Īfter Bitter's parents died, she was put into the foster care system.
The author nuances their linear plot line with frequent flashbacks and expositional asides. Knopf, 2022.Īkwaeke Emezi's novel Bitter is written from the third person point of view and in the past tense. Natalie Berglind, who reviewed for The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, called the novel timely due to "its mostly Black cast and escalating protests against an unjust world." Berglind also noted how it attempts to tackle the subject of using violence as "the means of disrupting long held power dynamics" and how the author does not provide an answer to related questions but instead hopes to provoke "thoughtful discussion." They conclude by saying "the ending is abrupt" but "offers tempered optimism to the teen who feels immense frustration with a world unconcerned about their future.The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Emezi, Akwaeke. Publishers Weekly praised the characters, especially due to having "the agency to define the future for themselves and their city." They also called the main character, Bitter, "all the more memorable for her complexity." Kirkus Reviews gave the book a starred review, in which they highlight the "timely tension" present in Emezi's writing as the characters must decide "when and how to act in the face of unjustifiable state violence, among other societal atrocities." In addition, the reviewer noted how the various queer characters "receive love and support" from those around them.
For Bitter, Emezi "wanted to write about revolution but community" and how people who might want to help don't necessarily need to be in the forefront. When Emezi first began writing Pet in 2017, they had planned for it to be part of a trilogy but eventually gave up on the idea. A prequel to Emezi's Pet, Bitter tells the story of a Black teenage girl living in a city troubled by constant protests and violence. Bitter is a young adult novel written by Nigerian writer Akwaeke Emezi and published by Knopf on February 15, 2022.
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