A review by riverlasol
Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

oh my goodness. how do i pull my thoughts together into a coherent review? this book was a WILD RIDE. I admit I saw a few of the twists coming but others completely blew me away and either way I know this for sure—this author is an extremely talented writer with a knack for foreshadowing, which is always wonderful in a thriller like this. This book hooked me from the first page—and not because of the mystery, though of course I wanted to know what happened—but both the main characters were interesting individuals, people who had so much conflict and complexity in their lives even outside of the mystery itself. I always find myself disappointed when thrillers are too much about the plot and not about the people and this book was not falling into that problem at all. I was rooting for these characters from the beginning and truly appreciated how we got a full picture of their lives. This book also was, I thought, a beautiful depiction of the intersection of queerness and blackness. 
Now…the emotional impact. This book was horrifying, not just because of the terrifying concept, but because everything the writer did made it feel so real. like this could literally have been a news story on tv. 
this was a complex, gripping thriller but also at its core a story about two people fighting to be empowered in a system that wants them to be powerless. i don’t want to go into spoiler territory so i’ll end this review here. i cannot recommend it enough and please check content warnings beforehand if you read it!
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