Pet Books in Order

The Pet books are companion young adult novels set in Lucille, a city where young people must look closely at injustices that adults would rather explain away. The novels share a world and a history, but they give different characters their own urgent choices. Together, they ask what it takes to build a safer place, and who pays the price when people demand change.

Bitter comes first chronologically. Its heroine has spent years in foster care and is relieved to attend Eucalyptus, a school where talented teens can make art and breathe. Outside its walls, though, Lucille is convulsed by protests over deep inequality. Bitter is pulled between the safety she has fought to find, the friends taking risks in the streets, her painting, and a new romance. She has to decide whether keeping herself safe means stepping away from a struggle that affects everyone around her.

Safety can be real and still not be enough.

Pet takes place later, after Lucille has remade itself into a place where people insist that monsters are gone. Jam, a trans girl who communicates without speaking, has grown up believing that promise alongside her best friend, Redemption. Then a horned, colorful creature named Pet emerges from one of Jam’s mother’s paintings to hunt a monster hiding close to home. Jam is asked to face a truth that the adults around her would rather deny.

The books do not follow one protagonist through a single continuous plot. Instead, Bitter supplies the emotional and political history behind Lucille, while Pet shows what can happen after a revolution claims victory too soon. That makes chronological order especially rewarding: start with Bitter, then move to Pet. Readers can also begin with Pet for its self-contained mystery and return to Bitter for the city’s earlier story.

Expect imaginative fantasy with real emotional stakes, not a simple battle of good against evil. Art matters in both books. So do friendship, chosen family, protest, fear, and the hard work of believing people when they tell the truth. The tone can be tender and hopeful, but it does not look away from harm or from the risks of confronting it.