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A review by whatbritreads
Double Cross by Malorie Blackman
3.0
I’m just struggling to see how we went from Noughts and Crosses to this book - they kind of feel like three very separate books connected loosely by the original world. It’s so disjointed and jumpy and the actual full outline for the series makes next to no sense. It’s such a shame because the original premise so was stellar, I think as a standalone Noughts and Crosses with a bit more work could’ve been amazing.
This book was better than Checkmate, don’t get me wrong, but it was still so far from realistic it killed me. I know it’s a dystopian world but the whole point of it was to border on realism, the events that take place here are so unrealistic. To give it credit, it did keep me entertained and the pacing was good and there were some scenes where I was kept in genuine suspense, but overall just poor. Things thrown in for the shock factor, a happy ending where there shouldn’t have been one, characters doing things that I just couldn’t fathom their motive for. Just a mess really. And for such a chaotic world and storyline, I hate that it keeps having a happily ever after.
It tales on tough topics like knife crime, drug addiction etc. which I think is important but the execution was terrible. Mild spoiler here but the drug addiction plotline was so poorly done and barely touched on, I didn’t feel any emotion at all it felt so shallow. I also don’t believe a teenage boy could’ve outsmarted several gangs but okay cool I guess he did.
The characters had no distinct personalities at all, Sephy and Meggie in particular just turned indistinguishable, Callie is just Sephy 2.0 and Tobey is just another Callum. It’s so disappointing and completely severs any connection I could’ve had with them. The way they talked to each other was bizarre still, for example Callies grandmother referring to Callies uncle as ‘my son’ instead of ‘your uncle’ and everyone constantly calling either other by their full name? Just felt so off to me.
Sorry for the negativity, I’m just ultimately so let down by this series. It’s mediocre where I was expecting mindblowing from the premise. I’m so sad it veered off the original direction it was going in and rushed to a haphazard conclusion.
This book was better than Checkmate, don’t get me wrong, but it was still so far from realistic it killed me. I know it’s a dystopian world but the whole point of it was to border on realism, the events that take place here are so unrealistic. To give it credit, it did keep me entertained and the pacing was good and there were some scenes where I was kept in genuine suspense, but overall just poor. Things thrown in for the shock factor, a happy ending where there shouldn’t have been one, characters doing things that I just couldn’t fathom their motive for. Just a mess really. And for such a chaotic world and storyline, I hate that it keeps having a happily ever after.
It tales on tough topics like knife crime, drug addiction etc. which I think is important but the execution was terrible. Mild spoiler here but the drug addiction plotline was so poorly done and barely touched on, I didn’t feel any emotion at all it felt so shallow. I also don’t believe a teenage boy could’ve outsmarted several gangs but okay cool I guess he did.
The characters had no distinct personalities at all, Sephy and Meggie in particular just turned indistinguishable, Callie is just Sephy 2.0 and Tobey is just another Callum. It’s so disappointing and completely severs any connection I could’ve had with them. The way they talked to each other was bizarre still, for example Callies grandmother referring to Callies uncle as ‘my son’ instead of ‘your uncle’ and everyone constantly calling either other by their full name? Just felt so off to me.
Sorry for the negativity, I’m just ultimately so let down by this series. It’s mediocre where I was expecting mindblowing from the premise. I’m so sad it veered off the original direction it was going in and rushed to a haphazard conclusion.