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As de picas by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

138 reviews

thecriticalreader's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Review:

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé has been widely praised ever since it came out, so I had high expectations going into it. Although it looks like a rather thick book, the text is not very dense, and it is immensely readable; I read the entire thing in an afternoon. Àbíké-Íyímídé has a talent for sweeping the reader into her story and keeping them hooked.

According to the author’s note, Àbíké-Íyímídé wrote Ace of Spades as a way to capture the alienating, terrifying, and disempowering feelings brought about by living in a society constructed around institutional racism, and in that respect the book succeeds spectacularly. The targeted attacks by Aces are creepy enough on their own, and even more horrifying when their motivation is racism rather than the typical motivations for thriller villains. I appreciate how the story showcases how the feeling that “you can’t trust anyone” takes on another dimension when it comes to living in a white supremacist society as a Black person.

As much as I found to like about Ace of Spades, the book failed to avoid some of the trappings I associate with young adult literature. The two main characters are interesting (I found Devon to be more well-developed in his backstory than Chiamaka) but lack a certain amount of depth. The plot is predictable if you’ve been exposed to a good amount of books and movies, and the logistical requirements of the twist require a hefty amount of suspended disbelief. Additionally, I found the conclusion to be rather rushed and underwhelming; it fails to give the main characters agency in their ending, and then tries to make up for this with an epilogue.

I think that Ace of Spades is terrific for a YA novel (and a debut, which the author started when she was eighteen!). It has undeniable storytelling and thematic strengths but can never quite transcend the limits of the YA genre.

The Run-Down:

You will probably like Ace of Spades if . . .

· You like YA thrillers

· You like Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl, but wish they had more diverse representation

You might not like Ace of Spades if . . .

· You dislike YA books

· You want to read an original plot

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oli_porti's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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bookishchef's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Damn, this kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

I read the Get Out comparison and somehow I still didn't expect ALL of the white people to be in on it.
I kept assuming it was either Jamie, Jack or Belle (in that order from most likely to least). So when the answer turned out to be "yes, and also all of the other characters", I was shook.

I really enjoyed the ride though, even though I thought the final plottwist

(with the news outlet being evil and the school going up in flames)

was a tad predictable.

The entire time while Terell and Chiamaka were chatting about breaking the story to the news, I was very sceptical. It felt so dumb? Especially after all they'd been through and the Belle revealing there were way more people in on it.

There are also still some things that puzzle me:

1. Was Scotty in on it too? If so, he's a damn good actor if he convinced both Devon and Chiamaka that he didn't do it. His storyline got dropped halfway through the book so we never really got a resolution there.

2. What happened to Belle? She told Chiamaka what was happening and I don't assume that her family took kindly to that.

3. How did Devon end up the way he did? We get a little bit of an answer to that in the prologue, which shows that he's living with Terell and his mother but... How? He obviously wasn't getting into Juilliard and he dropped out. Yet the epilogue letter calls him "professor". So what did he do? How did he manage?

4. What happened to Andre? Is he still serving time? Am I not supposed to care?

5. Why did Devon's mom hide his father's death from him? It is said in the epilogue that Devon and his mother weren't on speaking terms for a while after he confronted her... And then what? How did that conversation go? This subplot feels unfinished now.

6. Was Peter the Hacker in on it too? If so, why did he help Chiamaka by revealing what pc the messages were send from? Why did he ask her to put in a good word for him with Belle if he knew Belle's family was in on it too?
And if he wasn't in on it, how did Aces expect the black students to not (accidentally) ask one of the students that wasn't in Aces for help?

I also have a minor headcanon/conspiracy:

We're told by a news anchor that the fire that burns down Niveus was caused by electrical issues. Which seems fair because those issues were mentioned many times before.
Only I thought those issues were just Aces manipulating the cameras, etc. With how it was set up, I assumed Jamie burned down the library. He was set up as a pyromaniac early on, and then threatened Chiamaka with his lighter. So, when she left him, angry and alone, in the library with his lighter, I assumed he was the cause of the fire.

Which he may still have been. After all, the book tells the reader many times that the media covers up white crimes all the time. But Jamie, according to the news broadcast, died in the fire. So that would mean he burned down the school without giving himself an escape? Or was he really that upset about being attracted to/friends with a black girl? I guess we'll never know. So, headcanon land it is.

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lotoblanco's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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axel_p's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

this book was so gripping it litterally made me scared

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rinku's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I was quite excited to read Ace of Spades and I was not disappointed. The story gets really disturbing and definitely has some Get Out vibes. Sadly, the setting and the characters couldn’t convince me fully.

In this story, we follow Chiamaka and Devon, the two only Black students at their private school. They’re in their final year when suddenly someone named Aces starts to share their darkest secrets with the whole school. This general idea didn’t sound too innovative for me at the beginning and some aspects, especially the ones around

the girl Chiamaka and Jamie “murdered”

, were predictable. But soon, the story turns really dark and sinister. One of the reasons for this are the heavy topics that the novel deals with, like drug abuse or the death penalty, but especially the racism and the homophobia. Both of them are so brutal and uncomfortable that my heart dropped many times. The escalation of the situation is so terrifying as well, especially how the lives of the main characters slowly get destroyed.

Learning the secret behind the Academy and Aces was so disturbing as well:

We learn that the whole Academy is part of a racist organization that practices something called social eugenics which was – I’ve mentioned it before – so shocking and disturbing as well

. There are also so many other shocking revelations that some people probably saw coming but I didn’t, like the fact that

Mr Taylor’s a liar, or that Martha is Belle’s sister. This made me really sad because I hoped that Belle would be a good person, but oh well

. My heart was just pounding so much while reading Ace of Spades, this novel made me so nervous lmao.

What I didn’t like as much though was the ending which felt a bit anti-climactic to me:

It was quite obvious that the big reveal at the school ball would fail but these random protestors were honestly not an interesting solution. Suddenly, the school starts to burn without any explanation which wasn’t really satisfying as well. The only thing I really enjoyed about the ending was Chiamaka attacking Jamie and learning that they founded a new school after all. But did I understand it correctly that the Academy still exists? That’s quite depressing, honestly

Another reason why I didn’t give Ace of Spades five stars are for me the characters. I have to admit that I’m not too fond of both main characters and I’m not sure if they’re even supposed to be likable. Both think that they’re something better and I sometimes struggled to understand their behaviour. This strong opportunistic orientation both of them had was a bit cringe, just like how Chiamaka sees everything as a competition. Still, they felt like real people right from the beginning and I felt so sorry for them, their situation is so unfair. Most of the side characters were unlikable as well, but I liked the development of the relationship between Chiamaka and Belle, and it was so great to see that

Devon’s mom accepted him

. Furthermore, it was amazing to see how Chiamaka emancipated herself from Jamie.

Ace of Spades is all in all a great book that starts with a more basic premise but turns it into a disturbing story with a lot of social commentary which I always love.

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