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.

I remember reading this series as a teenager and absolutely breaking my heart over the story. When I re-read it this time, I discovered a much more complicated and convoluted plot that was told too fast to do the story justice.

I will be completing the series as part of my goals to re-read old favourites from childhood and to read my physical TBR, but I don't think I would recommend this book. Possibly later books in the series might change my mind.

It's just not my type of book/story, I like retellings but I'm not that interested in Romeo and Juliet. But I get why this story is so popular and I'm glad I read it. I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna continue with the series after this one, but I think it is an important story to be heard it gives an interesting perspective on important issues.

Uh...did I read the same book as everyone else? This has pretty stellar reviews on Goodreads, which made me really excited to open it. This was probably one of the books I was most looking forward to reading this year. It's a dystopian YA that features a world where black people (Crosses) are the ones in power, while white people (noughts) are heavily discriminated against and treated like dirt. We follow a Cross named Sephy and a nought named Callum who struggle with their relationship as the prejudice and violence mounts against noughts.

The biggest fault I had with this book was the writing. I REALLY didn't care for it. The plot really takes its twists and turns, yet reading these portions felt like more of a “recap” of the events rather than a detailed account of the events. The writing was often very bloodless and relied quite a bit on dialogue, which didn't help me connect to the world of the book much. The writing just generally felt very childish and way too simplistic for the subject matter. There was awkward humor interspersed in would-be serious moments.

I noticed that a lot of reviewers chalked the writing up to the fact that it's for teenagers, not adults. Anyone who has read even one YA book knows that it doesn't have to be dumbed down for children to understand. Noughts and Crosses dealt with some very important issues, like racism and what it's like to be a minority, but the writing was so awkward, rushed, and immature that it overshadowed any serious discussion or character development. I will not be continuing the series.