Pet A novel

This compelling psychological novel probes the complexity of childhood perceptions, rivalries, and friendships in 1984 New Zealand. Twelve-year-old Justine Crieve is struggling with her mother's death and her father's paralyzing grief. Like her classmates, she is in awe of her charismatic teacher, Angela Price. The popular girls always seem to get favored teacher's pet jobs while Justine and her best friend Amy, who is Vietnamese, are never asked. When Justine is made to stay after class, she tells Mrs. Price of her mother's death and the seizures she often has, and suddenly she becomes the newest "pet." Then students find items missing, and they blame Amy for the thefts. Justine won't believe them, but her friendship with Amy begins to crumble as Justine becomes more involved with Mrs. Price, who has begun dating Justine's father. When tragedy strikes the school, Justine's sense of guilt and doubt propel her into an action that will change her life. This dark novel probes the power of deception, betrayal, religion, and childhood in every twist of its mesmerizing plot. Lovers of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Donna Tartt's The Secret History will want to read this compelling novel by an award-winning New Zealand author.

New Zealander Chidgey (Remote Sympathy) examines the consequences of grief in her layered and suspenseful latest. In 2014, Justine visits her father, Neil, who has dementia, at an Auckland nursing home. The nurse caring for him bears a striking resemblance to Mrs. Price, Justine's former schoolteacher. This coincidence precipitates a narrative leap to 1984, where most of the novel takes place. Twelve-year-old Justine, who has epilepsy, is in her final year at a Catholic primary school in Wellington. She's recently lost her mother to cancer and lives alone with her alcohol-dependent father. At school, Justine's classmates vie for the attention of the charismatic and capricious Mrs. Price, though she becomes one of the teacher's pets. Tensions mount after Mrs. Price first begins an affair with Neil, which Justine doesn't appreciate, and then harnesses the students' xenophobia to scapegoat Justine's friend Amy Huang, who is of Chinese descent, for a series of thefts at the school. As Justine navigates the dark corners of adult authority, the plot accelerates toward a surprising and tragic denouement involving Mrs. Price, Amy, and Justine. Chidgey satisfies and horrifies in equal measure. (Aug.)