265 pages
Published 2022
Read from August 3 to August 7
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Prequel to Emezi’s excellent Pet, Bitter takes place a generation prior, during the revolution that established the utopian society of Lucille. Bitter is a teenage artist living in the mysterious Eucalyptus school, invited there like so many other queer and castoff young talents. She is making the most of the first stable, supportive environment of her life, and resents the revolutionary Assata movement, which battles cops and other forces of injustice in the streets outside Eucalyptus. Bitter has lost any hope that conditions in Lucille could ever get better. She also has the ability to bring some of her artistic creations to life — including angels, who come through the gate of her blood to promise vengeance and death to the billionaires and other monsters who torment Lucille. And of course Bitter isn’t the only student at Eucalyptus with the power to be a gate.
As with the middle third of Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland, much of the story here centers on an abused and deeply traumatized teenager learning to find healing and safety in community — and learning to risk danger to protect and preserve that community. Having been an abused and deeply traumatized teenager myself, I could have used books like this at that age. Living in an abusive and deeply traumatizing society here in the death throes of capitalism, we could all use more books like this every day.
Wherever Bitter sounds a bit didactic, I remind myself that we need books that teach about community and communication skills and processing your own emotions in healthy ways. Characters communicating and demonstrating emotional intelligence only feels stiff because we’re used to books centering miscommunication and petty resentment as plot devices. The white supremacist capitalist system all around us has always emphasized individualism, always discouraged community, and one way it does this is through pop culture. Just like with Andi C. Buchanan’s Sanctuary, teaching new ways to think and behave and how to practice intentional community is much of the point of the book.
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