Review by claudcloud - Ace of Spades

claudcloud 's review for:

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

3.5

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book is important for many reasons, not only because it's unafraid to put racism and white supremacy under a microscope and go into detail about these systems that have been around for generations and that are still pervading our society even today, but also because it takes great care to show that Black people can and will thrive in spite of it. As horrified as I was by Aces and by the entire Niveus Academy, it served as a poignant reminder that active anti-racism is something that we should all be practicing every single day, and that these attitudes and ideologies should not be allowed or welcomed from anyone or anything.

That being said, in terms of the book itself, the mystery was what kept me interested most of the time, but the shorter chapters and the constant POV changes between our two protagonists, Devon and Chiamaka, left me a little disconnected from them as characters. While I was constantly rooting for them and hoping they would finally get some protection and/or allies to help them with what was happening, I felt like I only got glimpses of each of them, and it was harder to really know them because of it. Maybe it's the pacing, maybe it's the lack of enough information about either of them, or the fact that everything moved really quickly, but something was just missing there for me. The writing itself is also quite simplistic, which does make the book very accessible and easy to read, but can also be detrimental at times.

Overall, this was still enjoyable, and I would absolutely recommend this as a quick, mysterious read, but I think I was expecting a little more out of it than I ended up getting, and that's on me!