OMIGOD this is such a good book. It moves along interestingly at first but not so terribly differently than many another good YA, but it sneaks up on you and is powerful in its stealth. So glad I read it. ( )

Four Things I Hated About This:

1. The audiobook narrators
2. The writing
3. The premise
4. The characters

I agree with another reviewer who said we don't really need a version of the Civil Rights Movement where white people are the oppressed ones. I can actually imagine young readers who will get something out of this, but I really didn't. (Honestly, I didn't even make it that far into the book before I couldn't take it anymore.) I kept thinking of that scene at the end of the movie A Time to Kill where Matthew McConaughey is giving his closing argument and ends with "now imagine she's white." Like for some people, they cannot grasp the effects of racism unless they imagine their own race being subjected to it. ( )

This is set in an alternative history where white people have been opppressed for centuries and only released from slavery about fifty years before the story starts. It is told in the first person viewpoints of two young teenagers, Callum who is a Nought (white person) and Sephy (Persephone) who is a Cross (black person) from the ruling class. Sephy is more privileged than most as her father is a top politician, tipped for Prime Minister (the book is set in an alternative Britain).

Good points: there was a lot of food for thought from reversing the usual status quo. The position of Noughts in the story is similar to that of African Americans during the 1950s with the real-life bussing of black children to formerly all-white schools. In this story, it happens in reverse when Callum is one of a handful of Noughts allowed to attend Sephy's school, who then face enormous prejudice which engineers their gradual expulsion. Meanwhile, the long standing friendship between the two is put under greater and greater pressure, not helped by Sephy's naive behaviour which is perceived by Noughts, such as Callum's family, as patronising etc. Multiple tragedies are inflicted on his family, all related to the crushing discrimination suffered by Noughts. And Sephy herself receives an education in the way things really are, in her own family as well as in the greater society.

Not so good: the various tragedies that engulf Callum's family were very predicable. The constant switching of viewpoint, sometimes after less than a page, made the book very bitty and made it difficult to get into the characters. I also found Sephy extremely irritating. The situation with the letter that wasn't read in time was very cliched also. However, I do accept that these things would probably not strike the target readership as so predictable/cliched - I've obviously read a lot more books and seen a lot more TV/films etc where similar situations have arisen, albeit in a different context.

I do 'get' also that the feelings of the two characters had morphed into more than friendship although they were both in denial for a long time, but wasn't totally convinced by what happens late in the story when Sephy is placed in great danger. The ending though was very hard hitting for a young adult book. So on balance I would award it 3 stars. ( )

Wow. That book did not go the way I expected at all, so many plot twists and turns. ( )

3.5 Stars ( )