Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-ÍyímídéMy 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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