Reviews with content warning for Death - Ace of Spades

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.

Content Warnings