Don't get me wrong, this is an important book, with important themes. I think it's really impressive in a lot of ways, especially for a debut novel. Ace of Spades is a twisty, gossipy, dark academia book, and I think it's best to go in pretty blind. BUT by the end of the book it definitely starts to feel like Abike-Iyimide had so many points she wanted to drive home that they all were clamoring for attention without enough page space to contain them. And even worse eventually certain plot points seemed to exist not to serve the story but to drive the message even deeper. I think all of this could have been mostly solved with more pages. Instead it felt like an editor or an advisor told the author that there were already enough pages and it was time to wrap it up quickly just as there were incredible opportunities to discuss and delve deeper. I think these things won't bother everyone, but for me it's a pet peeve when books use plot as a bludgeon for a soapbox, even if the soapbox is relevant and important. It is entirely possible to have good storytelling and important themes without one being there solely to serve the other. This is not a bad book by any means, but it's almost more frustrating for me to read a good book that didn't quite do it for me...

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Tapiwe Mugweni and Jeanette Illidge and would thoroughly recommend the audio.