Gr 9 Up—When the secrets of two prep school seniors are exposed to the school community via anonymous text messages, they must work together to figure out who is targeting them and why, before things turn deadly. This
debut thriller addresses systemic racism, structural white supremacy, microaggressions, class distinctions, and
LGBTQIA+ identities.

This debut young-adult thriller by Nigerian-British author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé tackles issues of racism and homophobia. The story is about two Black high school seniors, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, in an otherwise all-white private school who are targeted by an anonymous bully who begins a campaign to expose their secrets to the entire student body at Niveus Academy. The campaign is carried out mostly by texts, but it also involves darker and more dangerous elements. The story is told through both Devon’s and Chiamaka’s points of view: Devon, the gay scholarship kid from a poor neighborhood; and Chiamaka, the daughter of an Italian father and Nigerian mother who are both doctors and wealthy. Very interesting characters, many twists and turns. In my opinion, much of the story involved suspension of belief, but it was nevertheless engaging. ( )

This book demonstrates the biggest issues in society. Two students are enrolled to a school because of the colour of their skin, and are led to believe that for the past two years, they were working towards getting into college with valedictorian and good grades/attendance under their belt. Devon and Chiamaka worked hard to get into Niveus Private Academy and found a passion, which would take them on further education to pursue relevant careers. Now in their final year and before they can focus on going to Julliard and Yale, text messages are sent around the school, tarnishing the status of the only two black students, whose plans are potentially shattered.

The setting for this story is generic, with the American standard wealthy, modern houses with white picket fences beside a rough neighbourhood filled with drug dealers and chipped paintwork on front doors. However, the school abides by UK terminology to suggest a prestigious institution and deliberate reputation; but unless the area follows a completely different rule from normal schools, its existence is not exactly realistic. It is revealed that the students' parents and grandparents attended this school and upheld a tradition one hundred years after the abolition of slavery, and enrolling only two black students every ten years, yet no one takes notice of the all-white school in a diverse town. Even Terrell demonstrates how easy it is to research the school in one search; neither Devon nor Chiamaka make the attempt to research the school. If the search results were difficult to find or were deceitful, this could somewhat justify the secret camp all the white students attend over the Summer, and the secrets would only be revealed from within the institute.

The book implements different types of hardships both Devon and Chiamaka experience. However, Devon is bombarded with everything under the sun: a single parent – with one in prison – and poor living, bad neighbourhood which leads to drug dealing for financial purposes, and the views on homosexuality. For Chiamaka, her issues are primarily based on how she looks and getting the perfect boyfriend. It comes across as stereotypical with a young man stuck in a bad neighbourhood and turning to crime while a young woman has a bad hair day and no boyfriend. Nonetheless, it is entirely feasible for a human being to experience the risk of having no further education and the risk of homelessness, and another who wishes to have the perfect family life, even if this story includes a lack of distribution in hardship. That being said, the contrast in lifestyles only emphasise the racism explored in the book: Devon and Chiamaka are targeted due to the colour of their skin, nor for their background.

The book starts off slow, introducing both protagonists and their relationships with other students. They don’t know each other apart from the fact they attend the same school, which means for the readers, we learn their contrasting lifestyles and individuality. There is an arc in their attitude towards each other and over time the arc is natural. This also means seeing varied characters that later explain their opinions on Devon and Chiamaka. There are gender stereotypes, like when friendships between two men end, they end in violence or silence as they ignore each other. For women, they are always in a competition, trying to be the ‘top of the pack’ and making snide comments about each other. The only three friendships that are different are between Devon and Terrell, Chiamaka and Belle, and Devon and Chiamaka. The friendships grow naturally from their first encounters to throughout the story. This, therefore, reinforces the fact the entire school has has a script everyone follows – like a film. Although, the relationships are different because two of them become romantic, but the platonic stage is not forced and read as realistic. Once it’s revealed to Devon and Chiamaka that the texts are done by the school, action finally picks up.

A question I discovered is near the beginning, the board shows the Ace of Spades with the school’s mottos and this is picked up by Devon – who doesn’t understand why no one else considers the brief error weird. Then, it doesn’t occur to Devon that later on, the Ace of Spades are used by the masked students and he doesn’t put two and two together. I’m disappointed that for two very intelligent students, they react to the bullying like they’re high school students as opposed to reacting to the bullying like academic students with sights on esteemed colleges. They don’t inform the staff until later on, and don’t think to contact anyone outside the school until the end. That being said, this could demonstrate just how deceitful the school truly is: perhaps Devon and Chiamaka believe they are intelligent because their grades have been falsified to justify why they should stay on at Niveus, in preparation for this entire ordeal to play out and ultimately humiliate the two students in the hopes they would disappear. Nonetheless, Devon is later a Professor and Chiamaka is later a Doctor; therefore, they prove their intelligence in the real world.

The second question is at the ball, it’s established that the school is in on the Aces debacle, but it is not clear whether the ‘entire’ school includes the IT technician, for example. There are names absent from the list, but does the IT technician happily help Devon and Chiamaka because he wants to or because it’s part of the plan? ( )

Rating: 3.5/5

I have so much to say. Let's start off with the plus's. It's been a really long time that a book has kept me from putting it down and I finishing it in a day. The book is very gripping and swallows you whole. The writing is good and the character development is amazing for one of the leads but okayish for the other.

Was it predictable? Not completely! A few things were very obvious but I think this also lines up with the agenda of the 'Opressor/s'.

Coming to why it wasn't a 5 star read, the book felt a little stretched out towards the end. The epilogue was 3 chapters. The last line was amazing, I have to accept that I didn't see that coming but a lot of what happend in the book felt implausible.

The next paragraph may be perceived as spoilers by some even though I am not revealing anything essential to the plot of the book, so please refrain from reading it if you don't want to.

One important thing that gets to me is how the teens in trouble will not go to the parents. I know that not all parents are supportive and even if they would be, they aren't vocal enough for the kid to believe or trust them but running with that narrative and letting kids deal with life threatening trauma by themselves sets a negative example and I don't think it should be endorsed. ( )

The first 25% was OK then it got way too boring because stuff that could be done in a few chapters was made to drag out for the rest of the book.

0 stars ( )