Scan barcode
A review by alice_digest
Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman
3.0
I had high hopes for the second books in the Noughts & Crosses series. The ending of Noughts & Crosses was powerful and full of promise, but I don't feel like Knife Edge lived up to it. It's not a bad book, it's still better than most but it didn't grip me in the same way.
Following on from Noughts & Crosses, and the short story An Eye for An Eye, Sephy has had her baby daughter and now in a difficult position caught between the two worlds. She has a hard time forgiving her family for their role in what happened to Callum, but the noughts do not want her either. She has to find a way to survive, and come to terms with everything that happened with Callum, particularly after she receives a devastating letter from him. The other half of this novel focuses on Jude, as he tries to survive as a fugitive, still seething with anger towards the crosses and blaming Sephy for his brother's death.
I really loved Sephy in the first book, but I found myself disliking her the more Knife Edge went on. She has been through so many traumatic experiences, and become a single mother, all by the age of eighteen. I just wanted her to deal with it better than she does. She becomes angry, hurt and confused after Callum's letter but worst of all cold. Cold towards her own daughter. It is frustrating that she had built her life around Callum, and then when the memories and promises she thought she had of him are ripped away she just gave up on everything! I wanted to shake her. Her reactions are I suppose understandable, but I wanted her to be so much better than that.
Jude I never liked anyway so realising that half this book is Jude chapters was not a happy moment. His characters is dull and frustrating, all he cares about is his revenge and his revenge barely makes any sense, and is based on the most tenuous of links! Callum's death was more of his own fault than Sephy's, and Jude himself was never blameless. He does have an opportunity for a kind of redemption, or at least enlightenment. He could have grown as a character and gone in a more interesting direction.. but he is Jude. So he has to chose the most violent and destructive path, which really leads no where.
The world is a least consistent, and continues to be unchanged and oppressive. There were a handful of new characters but aside from Cara they stayed on the edges and were never very developed. I actually find Meggie and Jasmine (Callum and Sephy's mothers) the most interesting, but their relationship and their relationships with Sephy were barely touched on.
Everybody in this novel was too on edge, and too scared to act (Knife Edge, right), especially around Sephy. Unfortunately this meant that hardly anything happened in this whole book, not in terms of really driving a plot forward. It was just boring.. and depressing. So depressing! I don't mind a despondent novel without hope.. but there has to be something interesting going on.
I'm disappointed and I won't read any more in the series. Three stars is generous, it's more of a 2.5.
Following on from Noughts & Crosses, and the short story An Eye for An Eye, Sephy has had her baby daughter and now in a difficult position caught between the two worlds. She has a hard time forgiving her family for their role in what happened to Callum, but the noughts do not want her either. She has to find a way to survive, and come to terms with everything that happened with Callum, particularly after she receives a devastating letter from him. The other half of this novel focuses on Jude, as he tries to survive as a fugitive, still seething with anger towards the crosses and blaming Sephy for his brother's death.
I really loved Sephy in the first book, but I found myself disliking her the more Knife Edge went on. She has been through so many traumatic experiences, and become a single mother, all by the age of eighteen. I just wanted her to deal with it better than she does. She becomes angry, hurt and confused after Callum's letter but worst of all cold. Cold towards her own daughter. It is frustrating that she had built her life around Callum, and then when the memories and promises she thought she had of him are ripped away she just gave up on everything! I wanted to shake her. Her reactions are I suppose understandable, but I wanted her to be so much better than that.
Jude I never liked anyway so realising that half this book is Jude chapters was not a happy moment. His characters is dull and frustrating, all he cares about is his revenge and his revenge barely makes any sense, and is based on the most tenuous of links! Callum's death was more of his own fault than Sephy's, and Jude himself was never blameless. He does have an opportunity for a kind of redemption, or at least enlightenment. He could have grown as a character and gone in a more interesting direction.. but he is Jude. So he has to chose the most violent and destructive path, which really leads no where.
The world is a least consistent, and continues to be unchanged and oppressive. There were a handful of new characters but aside from Cara they stayed on the edges and were never very developed. I actually find Meggie and Jasmine (Callum and Sephy's mothers) the most interesting, but their relationship and their relationships with Sephy were barely touched on.
Everybody in this novel was too on edge, and too scared to act (Knife Edge, right), especially around Sephy. Unfortunately this meant that hardly anything happened in this whole book, not in terms of really driving a plot forward. It was just boring.. and depressing. So depressing! I don't mind a despondent novel without hope.. but there has to be something interesting going on.
I'm disappointed and I won't read any more in the series. Three stars is generous, it's more of a 2.5.