Reviews - Ace of Spades | The StoryGraph

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it was good but the audio book was so long that i started getting mad at how long it was taking me. the story was rather slow as well and again, i didnt like most of the characters. i warmed up for some of them along the way tho. but it was that kind of book where there is just so many bad things happening and nothing good. i was like, "no not this" so many times bc i felt super bad for the main character for all that shit that happened to them. over all it was great tho.

amongthewild's review against another edition

4.0

This book was really good. It weaves incredible social commentary in with a thrilling mystery. I didn't remember that there was queer rep in this book, so I was pleasantly surprised when both main characters were queer and engaged in queer relationships on the page. I've got to say I definitely sussed out a lot of the twists, so I wouldn't say I was completely surprised, there aren't many red herrings but that seems to also be the point. Overall, I had really high hopes for this novel and it definitely lived up to my expectations.

The epilogue was very sweet and I was happy to see that D and C got the future they deserved :)

Spoiler

The fact that Chiamaka has a pregnant wife at the end... I was so happy for her.

There were some plot points/things left unanswered that I wanted to know more about. I'll detail those below!

Spoiler

- Why was Chiamaka so worried about Terrell in the end? Devon seemed to point out that she had a strange attachment to him but it was never brought up again in the final 15-20 pages.

- Who burned the school down? Was it Jaime on accident? They mentioned the electricity at the school had been messed with multiple times so it was probably the same person, but if that person was working with Aces why would they burn the school down?

- What happened with Belle?? On one hand, Chiamaka deserved to be able to tell Belle to fuck off, and Belle didn't deserve any more of her time, but the whole Martha being her sister thing was just swept under the rug pretty quickly and I felt like there was definitely more to explore there especially because it took up such a large part of the plot.

- The piece of paper that Jaime dropped at Chiamaka's house with the passcode 1717 was definitely a clue, and it was how I figured out that Belle and Jaime were both involved, but Chiamaka never picks up on it! She doesn't remember which was frustrating because it was such a big clue.

- What really happened to Chiamaka at Jaime's party? Was she drugged and then set up for the picture?

None of these unanswered things ruined the plot for me at all, I just wish we would have gotten to find out about them.

msfree_e's review against another edition

5.0

THIS IS THE KIND OF DRAMATIC, SUSPENSEFUL, ANXIETY-INDUCING BOOK I NEEDED! I loved it! It’s full of deceit, schemes, sex, and our good ol’ buddy, racism! They say this is Gossip Girl meets Get Out and that couldn’t be any more accurate of a description.

The book is about two high school seniors, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, who find themselves the target of an individual who goes by the name “Aces”. Aces is hell-bent on ruining these peoples’ lives by revealing secrets about them and spreading rumors around the elite private academy both Devon and Chiamaka attend.

This book has such a strong opening! I was immediately vested in the lives of Devon and Chiamaka - terrified for them, nervous for them, worried about them. I loved that the chapters go back and forth between the two so we get a chance to experience each of their point of views. It was also very interesting how what seems to be petty drama quickly escalates to something very sinister.

It was nerve-wrecking reading this book. Like I said, I was scared for these characters! And the only downside to the book is that the mystery of who’s behind the anonymous individual “Aces” is revealed several pages before the end. For me, the mystery holds the magic, so I was less interested in how the book progressed once the identity of Aces was known. However, there is still a lot of good drama that follows that leads to what I think is a solid conclusion.

As Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s debut novel, this was excellently written. This book gave me life and I devoured its pages! I so very much love reading amazing books by black authors and am happy to have come across this gem. I look forward to reading more from her.