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rainwatersparkAce of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Genre: YA, thriller
Content warnings: Outing of a queer character, revenge porn, cyberbullying, homophobia, racism
It's rare that I look at comp titles for a book and think, "Yes, these comp titles describe the book perfectly." But Ace of Spades is 100% Gossip Girl meets Get Out, and it is glorious.
Honestly, it's hard to talk about my favorite part of this book because it's a spoiler, so I'll just say that this book is so needed and powerful. I also 200% support portrayals of queer characters of color by actual authors of color, so you know, this was a win!
My one nitpick is something that I'll put under a cut for spoilers.
** SPOILER WARNING **
So in the author's note, the author mentioned that she didn't want to tie Ace of Spades and Niveus Academy to any specific geographical location in the US. I totally understand that, especially since the author is British; hell, I'm American and I still often set my stories in fictional towns/cities because *cough* I can't be bothered to do research into the nitty gritty history and geography of a real life location *coughcough*.
But, the fact that Niveus Academy has a Confederate flag displayed on old yearbooks makes me think this story really has to take place in the South, or a former border state like Maryland. Like, yes, there are racists in the north and west of the US, but they (I'm 99% sure) wouldn't use the Confederate flag as a symbol, because of the history. I would lean more towards this book taking place in somewhere like Baltimore (says the person who has never actually been to Baltimore, so uh, fee free to correct me) because the American South tends to have its own specific subculture as well.
Anyway, it's not a huge deal since I wouldn't even have noticed the lack of specified location without the author's note.
Genre: YA, thriller
Content warnings: Outing of a queer character, revenge porn, cyberbullying, homophobia, racism
It's rare that I look at comp titles for a book and think, "Yes, these comp titles describe the book perfectly." But Ace of Spades is 100% Gossip Girl meets Get Out, and it is glorious.
Honestly, it's hard to talk about my favorite part of this book because it's a spoiler, so I'll just say that this book is so needed and powerful. I also 200% support portrayals of queer characters of color by actual authors of color, so you know, this was a win!
My one nitpick is something that I'll put under a cut for spoilers.
** SPOILER WARNING **
So in the author's note, the author mentioned that she didn't want to tie Ace of Spades and Niveus Academy to any specific geographical location in the US. I totally understand that, especially since the author is British; hell, I'm American and I still often set my stories in fictional towns/cities because *cough* I can't be bothered to do research into the nitty gritty history and geography of a real life location *coughcough*.
But, the fact that Niveus Academy has a Confederate flag displayed on old yearbooks makes me think this story really has to take place in the South, or a former border state like Maryland. Like, yes, there are racists in the north and west of the US, but they (I'm 99% sure) wouldn't use the Confederate flag as a symbol, because of the history. I would lean more towards this book taking place in somewhere like Baltimore (says the person who has never actually been to Baltimore, so uh, fee free to correct me) because the American South tends to have its own specific subculture as well.
Anyway, it's not a huge deal since I wouldn't even have noticed the lack of specified location without the author's note.
