I’ve decided to keep this rounded down to four stars for now, because while the rest of the book was absolutely great, the climax was a little underwhelming for me, and that’s the moment you’re waiting for in a thriller. The epilogue ended the book on a great note, but this wasn’t a perfect read. It was very, very good, though, and I will definitely be checking out everything from this author going forward. If this is the book she can write at 21 years old (!) I can’t wait to see what she’ll do later.
This is a thriller/horror book written by London-born Àbíké-Íyímídé, and though it’s young adult, it doesn’t really fall into any common YA pitfalls. We have two main characters, Chiamaka Adebayo, the half-Nigerian, half-Italian queen of her private school, Niveus. And Devon Richardson, a closeted gay kid from the poor side of town who’s only there on scholarship, but hopes to go to Julliard some day. Both of them are headed into their senior years primed to make it out and to their dream futures.
And then things start to go wrong. Very, very wrong. There’s this anonymous person calling themselves Aces who is sending out text blasts to the entire school, exposing the secrets of a handful of students, and Chiamaka and Devon both seem to be prime targets.
This is a twisty page-turner, but it’s also dealing with a bunch of tough subjects, including homophobia, suicidal ideation, and racism. It was refreshing how flawed Chiamaka and Devon were, after reading so many books with YA protagonists who do no wrong and fart rainbows all the time (don’t get me wrong, I like those books, too). I liked the story a lot the whole time, but it took me about half the book to like the characters, and it’s no coincidence that everything going on begins to change both of them. They both have some really not great secrets in their past, that if they come out, means no Yale, no Julliard, no more bright futures.
The only other thing keeping me from giving this five stars is that the author made a deliberate choice (for good reasons!) that I’m not sure actually works in practice. She is British, so there are a ton of Britishisms in here, from dialogue to names to the school system (Prefects do not exist in America). But it’s clear that there are also American things going on, including the mention of pretty much only American colleges that the students of Niveus are wanting to get into. The author mentions in the afterword she chose to set this in a non-existent in-between place that’s neither America nor England or anywhere else, in order to emphasize that systemic racism and the other issues she touches on are not exclusive to one country or city, but exist worldwide. I get that, but the effect of it was really distracting, and kept pulling me out of being immersed in the story. When something you’ve chosen to do as a writing technique does that, no matter how interesting of an idea in theory it is, probably best not to go through with it. Maybe there are people who didn’t notice or care, but I am not one of them and I wish she’d just set it in England or in Connecticut or something.
Anyway, that complaint aside, this was great, and I’m buying myself a copy.
[4.5 stars]