Currently Reading #2

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

Out of the books acquired recently, I decided to read Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses next. This book was mentioned a lot during the Save the Pearls debacle of recent memory and so, even though it's for kids, I decided to give it a look.

The book's basic premise is an inversion of the current situation in the West of white oppression of non-white people. The Crosses (black people) are in charge, and the noughts (whites, who don't even get a capital letter much of the time) are the sub-class. God isn't for them, but only for the Crosses, and they do the scut work, live in the sub-standard housing, and have limited opportunities.

The book's two principal characters are Sephy (short for Persephone), a Cross whose father is a cabinet minister and whose mother is a drunk, and Callum, a nought whose mother used to be housemaid to Sephy's mother. The story explores the attempts of the two young people to sustain their friendship, and budding romance, in a world that is strongly opposed to their having any association at all. Callum's sister has been viciously attacked for dating a Cross, and when Callum joins Sephy's school among the first-ever nought intake, a near-riot ensues that indirectly leads to the sacking of Sephy's family's chauffeur, and to Sephy herself being beaten by her classmates.

The writing is sparse and generally clear, although sometimes I was a little confused about dialogue attribution. My main criticism would be the extensive use of saidbookisms, which make me squirm. As I'm not the intended audience, however, I'm not sure how much that matters. One of the book's biggest strengths is its use of alternating POVs, which allow us to gain insights into the thinking processes of both the young people, and understand how much they understand and misunderstand each other's thoughts, actions and motives. The relationship between Sephy and Callum is the core of the book.