Noughts & Crosses (Noughts and Crosses #1) by Malorie Blackman: BOOK REVIEW _ NON SPOILERY REVIEW_

Review by Rim

This book is so powerful and heart breaking. I have to say that I wasn't huge fan of the writing style, I found it pretty flat and didn't give me a broad view of the outter world I had to figure that out by myself and through what the 2 main characters said. All in all, I loved the idea of reversed racism (the opressor became the opressed) in other word, changing the equation of racism from WHITE--BLACK to BLACK--WHITE and how the author succeeded to portray that in a way none had done before which was the winning point for this book.

I liked the characters' relationships and I thought they were well built, I just wanted to see a little more about other characters in the book (Update: we get to see that in the upcoming books in the series). Even the characters that we are supposed to hate I liked their existence which served this purpose of this book.

I loved the plot twists they really kept me going but at the same time fearing to flip the next page sometimes. 

I think what blackman tried to portray is the fact that changing places or roles doesn't make anything better, because people with power and resources are entitled to give themselves the right to opress the other and make room for racial and social prejudice. Even the old claims that crtain ethnic group is smarter than the other or far more talented may not be scientificaly proven but they are still going to be talked of and considered by some simple minded racist.

I think this book had issues (Like the sex scene didn't convince me I would have liked it to take place in different circumestances) but it didn't kill it for me because after I read the second book I noticed that the author had a major change in the writing and the characters change.

I don't want to speak about the ending because it SHATTERED ME, literally, and I'm still recovering but I don't know if I can.

This edition contains the short story "An Eye For An Eye" which I thought served as a shifting point toward the next book and I'm pretty pleased that it existed, because it's the link between the first book and all what will happen next.

Ovarall, I gave this book 3.5/4 out of 5 stars.