Review: Ace of Spades

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Where do I even start?


None of this story makes sense

They accept black students basically just to get them to drop out? Why would they accept them into the school in the first place? I am flummoxed by its popularity beside representation because it does such a poor job. It is just an inconceivable conga line of trauma that really makes me weep for black ya writers if this is the kind of novel that gains praise. The racism is so overt and cartoonishly evil, it really makes it hard for me a black American to accept the existence of such a school and such a group of idiotic characters.

Even the small details like why did Chiamaka have her mother’s surname instead of her dad’s seems weird. I don’t know why, but that just surprised me that it was never explained or that the name wasn’t even hyphenated?(I know it’s nitpicky but it seemed indicative of the author who presumably has African heritage and wanted a part African part European character projection of herself and forgot that she was also part Italian somehow… ?) This was just so bad. Almost offensive.

I am also confused by what plot twist people kept referring to in reviews? There was no plot twist. The thing that you expected to happen, happened. When you compare a book to Get Out, I’m just gonna believe all the white people are racist and plotting and my expectations were confirmed to be true in a way that somehow less feasible than the twist in Get Out.

My worst complaint is that it’s not an accurate representation of racism and instead of allowing readers to empathize with black characters in a new and novel way it does it in a way that it always has. It uses our pain as entertainment. Racism is way more insidious and covert than how it’s portrayed in this book.




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Review: Dark Places

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lyle calls this case a “Whodunnit” which was my exact thought as I was listening. This one differed greatly from Sharp Objects in that the mystery is not as solvable. There were too many suspects in Dark Places. But it still carried that same ‘everybody is fucked up’ trait of Gillian Flynn’s. Her characters inhabit a world where cynicism and lewdness reign supreme which is really the perfect setup for a murder mystery because it seems as if anyone has a dark side to them capable of murder. In some ways, I admire this more than Sharp Objects because the mystery was not so obvious(well…partially true. Her go-to inclusion of a female psychopath reared its head into this story as well). But it was sort of dumb. A big Deus ex debt assassin murdered the mom and then murdered the other sister for reasons…? But even prior to that, it felt awfully gimmicky with its commentary on toxic true crime communities and the McMartin case. But Gillian Flynn’s writing and her commitment to shocking readers and exploring the darkness of her characters is something I cannot help but praise in spite of those aforementioned shortcomings. I will forgive the gimmicks because I can admit I crave a good gimmick. It’s just that mine don’t include an oopsy daisy murder epilogue. Just a lot of internal monologues about misanthropy. Yes, I am a delightful person.


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