Review Detail

Reader reviewed by chardiddlyarlie

This book is possibly my favourite ever. An alternative England is divided between the Noughts and the Crosses. Callum is a looked-down-upon nought, and, as readers slowly realize, he's white. His best friend, Sephy, a black Cross, comes from a privileged family for whom Callum's mother works. A misunderstanding leads to her firing, but Callum and Sephy maintain deep affection for one another. After Callum gets into Sephy's previously all-black high school, the world begins to close in on them. The idea is not unfamiliar but Blackman personalizes it and it makes for a thrilling, heartbreaking story. The tale unfolds in 117 short chapters, alternately narrated by Sephy and Callum, and readers will watch with something akin to horror as the teenagers try to sustain what has become love through serpentine wrong turns and events beyond their control: Sephy's do-gooder efforts, the suicide of Callum's sister, and Callum's family's turn to violence. Both fate and family conspire to keep the teens apart as the story winds to its inexorable conclusion. Gripping and deeply layered, this book will make readers question everything: race relations, government, friendship. But it is Callum and Sephy's love, tinged with a Wuthering Heights -like relentlessness, that wins in the end.