This was not the kind of book I usually ‘enjoy’ but something about the progression and the way things stood by the time it all ended made me like it.

Enjoy is a tough word to use for a book like this, but I have not been able to find a better one that might work in its place.

Justine wants to be the teacher’s pet. This is a title not lightly given. It comes with enormous perks and gloating rights. We move between the child Justine was and the present where we see what triggered her memories in the first place. The games Mrs. Price plays are obvious to us as readers while it simultaneously is easy to understand why children ( or even adults) might participate or fall for such compelling tactics.

It was quite hard to watch all the events unfold as they did. I did not expect such serious twists to occur but the status kept getting higher!

I would recommend this book to anyone who reads psychology thrillers, because at the end of the day this almost is one.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

So utterly dark and twisty. The setting of the 80s left me feeling nostalgic. It starts out sweet and innocent but very cleverly conceals a deeper plot.

At the heart of the story is Mrs Angela Price - a glamorous teacher who arrives at a small catholic school in a sports car and dressed as a blonde bombshell.
Catholic and devout all the kids seem to be happy, leading typical lives of teenagers in the 1980s.
Amy and Justine are best friends and when small petty thefts start happening in Justine’s class, everyone starts missing things apart from Amy.
Mrs Price is playing teacher’s pet with the entire class, she is a master manipulator.
It’s told from Justine’s point of view, she is profoundly conflicted by the impact that Mrs Price has on her friendship with Amy.

Pet is a novel about manipulation and society conformities - kids who are being told to look up to adults who turn to out to be corrupt and self-serving.

Thanks @catherinechidgey @europaeditions & @netgalley for the eARC

stressful, unsettling, very good! it was slow to start, but then i couldn't put it down. made me want to read more by the author!

Pet, by Catherine Chidgey, is a coming of age thriller which tells the story between 1984 and 2014. Justine is 12 in 1984, coming to terms with the death of her mother, and trying to look after her Dad.

We meet Justine in 2014, where she’s looking after her Dad in his care home, mistaking her daughter for her and clearly suffering from dementia. A chance meeting in the care home triggers her memories from 1984, and she recalls her time in primary school.
Her favourite teacher - blonde, glamorous and clever, she’s an aspirational figure for boys and girls alike. And men, as the men in the town flock to fulfil her every need.
Justine is desperate to be her pet - the chosen one to spend time with Mrs Price after school - looking after the pet, clearing the chalkboards. Only the coolest kids are in this gang, and it’s really clear if you’re in or out.

As a reader, this is odd behaviour for a teacher, for any adult. The fact that none of the parents pick up on this is strange, but also a testament to the power of Mrs Price, her charisma. I guess part of that is the era, and also the setting - rural New Zealand in the eighties, where kids were kids and adults were able to rule over them with their own whimsys. The scenes in the classroom were so well written, I felt like I was 12 years old and in trouble for something I didn’t know I’d done. Mrs Price as a character is great too - compelling and repulsive at the same time.

Pet could mean so many different things, as well. I have to say, I read it in my head in a Newcastle accent as a term of endearment. Pet as in animal, or stroke, or teacher’s pet. It could refer to any number of characters, too, not only Justine.

The other interesting point is the unreliable narrator - Justine is not only 12 and therefore not able to understand some of the more subtle or adult themes going on in her life, but she also suffers seizures which cause her to have memory blanks. This means we’re not completely sure on what’s happening at certain points in the story - it’s her word against everyone else’s.

I read this in a couple of days, mainly because I had to find out what was happening. The pacing is lovely, really even and well plotted. There was enough to keep me interested without feeling manipulated into the ‘what happened next’ cliffhanger. A TV adaptation would work really well, if it was going to be translated.

I’d be interested in reading something else from Chidgey, she has a number of books written before this one.

Recommended for readers of nostalgic thrillers, along the lines of Celeste Ng and Liane Moriarty.

A slow-burner that turns into a thrilling pageturner.

The setting is a New Zealand primary school in the 1980s where all the twelve-year olds are vying for the attention of their gorgeous teacher Mrs Price. Justine and Amy are best friends, but when Justine becomes Mrs Price's latest 'pet' the friendship starts to break down. Quite quickly it becomes clear that there is something off about beautiful Mrs Price. Is she manipulative? Or is it just that her teaching methods are unorthodox?

The evocative writing made it engaging from the start, but a bit of patience is required for the plot to take off and then I raced through the last 150 pages in no time.

Highly recommended. Thanks to the consistently excellent Europa Editions for a Netgalley ARC .

Pet is a gripping and unusual thriller following Justine, a young girl vying to be teachers pretty, with fierce competition from the class full of children equally besotted Mrs Price, all out to gain her favour.

As the story progresses, Justine seems ti be getting everything that she wanted but unfortunately, this is not the blessing she expected.

This novel explores childhood and the difficulties changes and societal pressures faced by young adolescents, as well as the power held over those children by adults trusted with their care - not excluding the devastating consequences of allowing the wrong people into these positions.

I was extremely invested in this book, even the narrative from young Justine was carefully written so as to not be overly juvenile but equally not to mature to be the real thoughts and actions of a girl so young. The plot was very well executed and I was definitely shocked a few times. This is a real page - turner and an absolute treasure. Highly recommend!

Dark, chilling and filled with twists, this was a great book to devour as quickly as possible. Set between two eras, the theme of memory was central as it switched between 1984 and 2014 and detailed some disturbing events in Justine’s life, all thanks to her teacher, Mrs Price.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

Wonderfully eerie and creepy. The atmosphere builds and becomes almost unbearably tense over the read, as you watch things build to a foregone (and terrifying) conclusion. Perfectly voiced child narrator, too.

Have now read 2 Chidgeys. Remote Sympathy was my book of the year a couple of years ago. Pet will probably feature in my best of 2023 list too. Best suspense probably.. Chidgey is such a talented author, can’t wait for the next!

Pet opens in a nursing home in Auckland in 2014, where Justine, along with her daughter Emma, is visiting her father. A carer with a familiar face sparks a train of memories, and we soon find ourselves in 1984, where young Justine is in her final year of primary school.


With her American car and glamorous appearance, their teacher Mrs Price, bowls over pupils and parents alike. She is poles apart from the other staff: aloof head teacher Mr Chisholm, who beats pupils with a strap, pious Father Lynch and elderly nerve-ridden Sister Bronislava.


Being ‘teacher's pet’ is no bad thing here: all the children long to be her little helper after class and receive a smile and some kind words. However, Mrs Price runs her choice of ‘pets’ on a sinister divide-and-conquer basis. For all her talk of ‘we are a family’, she thrives on the children worrying and being bullied.


Newly motherless Justine and her kindly but depressed father are her perfect target, and Mrs Prince pounces. Justine initially laps up this attention.


However, class life becomes more complicated when items start going missing from the children’s desks and bags. When nobody owns up, Mrs Price encourages the children to share their thoughts on the matter, and Justine and her best friend Amy are the main suspects. Add a liberal dose of casual racism, misogyny and religious bigotry, and we've quite the dark psychological thriller going on.


Pet is a compelling novel made from the dark side of childhood memories, overtly and subliminally. The problem with memory, however, is that it can be self-delusionary; from Justine as an increasingly unreliable narrator to her father’s later dementia, this book is faultless. Don't miss out on this one. 4.5⭐


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advance copy in return for an as always honest review.

In 'Pet', Catherine Chidgey offers a masterful study of power, control and abuse set in a New Zealand Catholic primary school in the 1980s. We are first introduced to the narrator Justine as an adult in 2014 as she cares for her father who is suffering from dementia, before she looks back on her final year of primary school when she and her classmates fell under the spell of their attractive and charismatic teacher Mrs Price. Mrs Price likes to have favourites, and Justine and her classmates are only too happy to compete to be her "pet"; Justine's status of class favourite appears to be bolstered by her widowed father's blossoming relationship with Mrs Price but a spate of petty thefts create a growing sense of conflict and unease between the children and leads Justine to question Mrs Price's actions.

I found this an utterly compelling read which works both as a taut thriller and an insightful exploration of the particular vulnerabilities of childhood, especially for girls like Justine and her classmates on the cusp of adolescence. Chidgey captures the anxieties and social pressures facing girls of this age perfectly, as well as specific factors relating to religion and ethnicity. In many ways this novel is reminiscent of Muriel Spark's 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', but Chidgey is prepared to take the consequences of Mrs Price's narcissism somewhere even darker. As the novel progresses it takes on a nightmarish quality as Justine becomes increasingly convinced that things are not as they should be but is unable to convince anyone else in authority of this and continues to doubt herself.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC of this superb novel to review.

Set in New Zealand in 1984 and 2014, this follows Justine and her relationship with her primary teacher Mrs Price. The “pet” of the title refers to a teachers pet, which is what Justine wants to be and does become.

A very easy read that builds the tension quite nicely. Well written a sly psychological thriller.

Need to look up the author and read some more of hers.

Thanks to Netgallery for the ARC

A new teacher arriving at a school, followed by rumours of her past. The pupils are all quickly enamoured but is everything as it seems? A brilliant chilling read that kept me on edge until the very end.

Pet is the teacher's pet in the form of 12 year old Justine and her teacher, Mrs Price. It is set in New Zealand and we meet the motherless Justine as she revisits her elderly father many years after the events that changed their life. The story is told through two timelines: 2014 and the flashback to Justine's childhood in the 1980s.

Justine and her best friend Amy long to catch the eye of their charismatic teacher, just like their more attractive classmates do. But when Justine becomes the centre of Mrs Price's attention Amy is not so sure that all is well. Their relationship suffers further when Amy is accused of being a thief. When Mrs Price begins to date Justine's father, who is desperate for love and companionship just as Justine is desperately missing her mother, everything appears to be rosy...

Pet is a wonderful psychological thriller with a twist I did not see coming. The themes of childhood betrayal and the hold a charismatic teacher can have on pupils is well described. This book deserves to do well and I highly recommend it Many thanks to NetGalley and Europa Editions for the opportunity to read and review Pet.


An enjoyable and intriguing read which kept me guessing until the end.

I'm very fussy about thrillers. The market is saturated with thrillers and crime fiction, and it's very difficult to find a thriller or suspense novel that really stands out from the crowd. Pet met the brief for me, and then some.

The short blurb about Pet, together with Catherine Chidgey's pedigree as a writer (she was longlisted for the Women's Prize and shorlisted for the Dublin Literary Award for the excellent Remote Sympathy) were enough to sell this one to me when I saw it on Netgalley. Mostly set in Wellington, New Zealand in 1984, here's the short description I read:

"When a charismatic new teacher arrives, everyone longs to be her pet. A gripping story of deception and guilt, set in a Catholic school during the 1980s."

I think this is all you should really know about the story going into it, suffice to say that this is a chilling and suspenseful tale that I had to *force* myself to put down.

The reliability of memory, the laissez-faire parenting of the 80s, the dominance of the Catholic Church, together with the casual racism and accepted misogyny of the time, are all explored with a deftness and skill that really wowed me. Superb and definitely a favourite read of the year. Bravo Catherine Chidgey. 5/5 stars

*Many thanks to the author, publisher @europaeditions @europaeditionsuk for the advance copy of Pet, which was published this week. As always, this is an honest review."

I loved this! Justine looks back at her 80s childhood, when a charismatic, glamorous new teacher arrives at their New Zealand Catholic school and everyone wants to be her pet.

Once I got a few chapters in I just couldn‘t put it down. It‘s dark and twisty, but not in a ‘terrible‘ way like the author‘s recent book, Remote Sympathy; more in a ‘I need to inhale this all in one go‘ way.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5

I absolutely loved this sinister yet deeply human story of a woman looking back on how an experience as the 'pet' of her beloved teacher, Mrs Price, changed the course of her life forever. Charming and affectionate, Mrs Price is likely to remind every reader of their favourite childhood teacher - but it becomes clear very quickly that all is not as it seems, and as the story unravels the horrifying truth is revealed to us piece by piece. Comparisons with 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' are bound to be made, but the author has skilfully taken that mantle and made this story stand firmly on its own two feet. A seriously compelling read with characters who feel very real and a coming-of-age story that will break your heart. Bravo.

I was a bit staggered at how compelling this book is. It's certainly an easy read which usually means not much will surprise me. However Catherine Chidgey has served up a wonderful slow burner that oozes menace and evil.

The story is split into two timelines: 2014 when the adult Justine is visiting her ailing father with her own daughter and 1984 which covers the main event of the motherless Justine's school days.

Mrs Price is Justine's form teacher in primary school and everyone wants to be the beautiful and charismatic teacher's pet. But Mrs Price only seems to pick the beautiful children whereas Justine and her best friend, Amy, do not fit into that category.

As Justine tries to inveigle her way into Mrs Price's good books a thief begins to take the things most precious to each class member. Nobody knows who is taking things and Mrs Price uses her own special way of ferreting put the truth. As more things go missing Justine has to make a choice of who she believes to be the thief and which way her loyalties lie.

Pet is a masterful telling of a story which we could all see in ourselves -- the desire to be admired, the need to be felt indispensable, the overwhelming need to fit in at school. Justine's loyalties are pulled in opposing directions on a daily basis, all while she is trying to come to terms with the loss of her mother and deal with his father's increasing drinking.

I got to about a third of the way through this book then found myself staying up way past midnight in order to know how it finished. Catherine Chidgey's Mrs Price is such an incredible character and the way she uses her popularity to manipulate situations is so cleverly done. I spent quite a bit of time talking to the characters to tell them what I thought of them then then next minute wondering if I, like Justine had misremembered a certain event.

If anything I'd advise you to read this story carefully and not rush through as you will find yourself wanting to do. This is my first experience of Catherine Chidgey's writing but I'm definitely going to find more. This was excellent. It deserves every bit of praise heaped on it.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Europa Editions for the advance review copy.

A thrilling novel of deception and childhood vulnerability. I read this in one sitting as it gripped me throughout.