Title: The Noughts & Crosses series
Author: Malorie Blackman.
Published: A boxset of all four books; Noughts &
Crosses, Knife Edge, Checkmate and Double Cross was released on 30th
August 2012.
By: Corgi
First line of Noughts & Crosses: “Honestly Mrs Hadley,”
said Meggie McGregor wiping her eyes, “That sense of humour of yours will be
the death of me yet.”
Last line of Double Cross: I cried.
Fave line: That’s just impossible
The Noughts & Crosses series contains four books; Noughts
& Crosses, Knife Edge, Checkmate and Double Cross. I have to say I wandered blindly into these
books whilst browsing through a store and I am so glad that I did, as late to
the party as I am. The added bonus of
being so far behind of course is that you get to enjoy a series from start to
finish in one sitting, which is exactly what I did over Christmas.
I’m calling these books a series but in truth they read as
more of a saga. The premise is nothing
short of genius. Blackman has taken the
concept of racism in all its ugly truth, the irrational thought processes that
created it and the political ideologies that perpetuate it, flipped them both
on their heads and created a modern, provocative masterpiece that left me
spellbound.
The Noughts & Crosses series follows three generations
of two families, the Hadleys and the McGregors.
The Hadleys are black, or crosses, and are a highly influential family
with Kamal holding a senior position in government which enables his family, a
wife a two daughters to live a more than comfortable existence. The McGregors are white, or noughts and live
on the flip side of the coin. As the white underclass their place within
society is predetermined and they face a constant battle against prejudice and
oppression.
The link between the two families comes from Jasmine Hadley
and Meggie McGregor, the two mothers.
Meggie works for Jasmine and there is undoubtedly a sincere friendship
between the two of them. Tragically for both women (although it is tragic for
different reasons) their friendship only lasts for a short while but it lasts
long enough to pass something special down to their children Sephy Hadley and
Callum McGregor, the main protaganists.
Their relationship develops over time from an innocent childhood bond to
something more serious and committed and seems doomed from the outset. The bond between their two races is frowned
upon by both communities and neither is accepted into the other’s community no
matter how sincere their intentions.
Even as the noughts fight back against the inequality that exists in
society it is clear that the offers being made by government to ‘improve their
lot’ are nothing more than token gestures the aim of which is actually to set
the noughts up to fail. Worse still for
Sephy is the fact that it is her father who is responsible for the entire
political farce.
It is Callum who becomes one of the victims of the charade
that Kamal Hadley has created. Desperate
to be more than the crosses decree he can be he gets the chance to attend the
same school as Sephy. It doesn’t take long to see that his chances of
successfully graduating are minimal to say the least. His treatment at the
school is one of the defining moments in the book and his changing attitude
towards the cross government. One thing
that doesn’t change, even though it falters badly at times is the relationship
between Sephy and Callum.
Whilst Callum struggles to keep his head above water and his
mother tries to keep her family on the straight and narrow it is clear that
Ryan and Jude McGregor (father and son number two respectively) have grown
frustrated with the inequalities that exist and have chosen to adopt more
subversive means in order to be heard.
What follows is a chain of events that are nothing short of tragic and
provides the setting for the next three books in the series all of which deal
with the repercussions of the first instalment.
The mini-précis above (and believe me, it doesn’t cover half
of the things I’d like to say, but I’d just be re-writing the book!) doesn’t
begin to describe how brilliant this first book and its sequels are. Each and every character is superbly written
and as such utterly believable. The
character of Lynette, Callum’s sister, was beautifully written from start to finish, I absolutely
adored the relationship between Sephy and Callum and I wanted to slap Kamal and
Jude into next week! Noughts &
Crosses left me feeling angry, frustrated, cheated, crushed and every emotion
in between. The story itself, whilst described as
dystopian, is timeless. Set some time in
a potential future its core firmly exists in the past. It bought to mind the story of Rosa Parks,
the images of the clashes at schools in Arkansas in the fifties and literary
classics such as I Know Why the Caged Bird sings and To Kill a Mockingbird. I
appreciate that the role between the races has been flipped 180⁰ but the
wrongness of the philosophy still applies. The story is a multi POV which if anything
makes it more poignant and the ending was nothing short of brutual, so much so
I questioned whether I wanted to pick up Knife Edge, #2 in the series. I’m so glad I did. I’ll admit I didn’t get over Noughts &
Crosses but I was equally enthralled by the next three books. Very few books leave me speechless and it’s
taken me three weeks to figure out what to write. So the best I can say is if you haven’t read
it yet, give it a try. It’s heavy going
but you won’t regret it.
5/5 - Just wow.
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