Noughts & Crosses

i first read this as a set book for English class. it brought up some really good discussion and made a lot of my 99.9% white class ‘get' some concepts of racism that they hadn't before.
visiting home this year, some 13 years later i found the copy of the book i had ‘borrowed' from school all those years ago in my dusty bookshelf - whoops :-)
i think this book was better on my first read. i enjoyed it less than i was expecting and was less invested in the characters than i thought i would be. the age difference between sephy and callum now bothers me during the first section and the fact that a hostage is sleeping with a captor (despite their history) gave me shivers on my spine (not the good kind). when i was a little younger than sephy i could really understand the drama of being a teenager and the entire love story was epic and incredible instead of a bit weird. i can remember our entire class screaming in frustration of sephy's choice which i can now understand.
i did stay up till 5am reading this for the second time and finish it in one sitting so it was obviously gripping and despite my lack of connection with the characters the second time around i still cried at the end.

Mixed feelings about this book. I appreciate turning the racism discussion on its head. Unique in that respect. Writing could get a little maudlin at times.

Dual POV books can be hit or miss, but the two voices this book utilized were very distinct. Points for that.

This book has good closure, I'm not sure why it's a series.

[slight spoiler] I almost didn't continue reading this book after the first few pages because the writing is . . . uneven. But this book is well worth reading; it is unrelenting and holds no punches. I never thought a YA book would follow one of its protagonist's journeys into political extremism and terrorism, but here we are.