Can the future ever
erase the past? Rose has a Cross mother and a nought father in a society where
the pale-skinned noughts are treated as inferiors and those with dual heritage
face a life-long battle against deep-rooted prejudices. Sephy, her mother, has
told Rose virtually nothing about her father, but as Rose grows into a young
adult, she unexpectedly discovers the truth about her parentage and becomes determined
to find out more. But her father's family has a complicated history - one tied
up with the fight for equality for the nought population. And as Rose takes her
first steps away from Sephy and into this world, she finds herself drawn
inexorably into more and more danger. Suddenly it's a game of very high stakes
that can only have one winner . . .
I’m choosing this because:
As you all know, it’s Malorie Blackman Month with Amy Bookworm so this is my latest book in my quest to read Malorie’s work. I’m not
sure how I feel heading into this because while I adored book 1 the follow up
had me feeling unhappy with the story development. I’ve decided to give it a
chance though. I can only hope that ‘Knife
Edge’ was a blip and that this is much better. It better be at over 500
pages!
Judging a
book by its cover:
Well ‘Checkmate’ follows
the black and white design of the previous 2 books but I don’t find the
chessboard design as striking. Whilst the other two were just as minimalistic at
least they had a focus point, this lacks that in my opinion.
Pricing
the (possible) awesomeness:
On Amazon the paperback is currently £5.24 and the Kindle
edition is a slightly cheaper £4.74. Reasonable but not the cheapest I’ve ever
seen a book on there.
I’m actually not sure how I feel about this book if I’m
completely honest. I loved the idea of the story being split between past and
present with the tenses converging for the finale. I loved the showdowns
between Jasmine and Jude & Sephy and Callie Rose. I can't help but feel
that some of the initial background wasn’t needed. Some of Callie Rose’s
younger years weren’t really connected to the overall arc of the story. The
story was a slow burner, taking more than half of the book to get into its
stride. I did enjoy the writing though, Malorie Blackman is a mistress of her
craft and she paints pictures with words but instead of being all flowery and
fat naked ladies, they’re gritty and opinionated and they speak of the
injustices of certain types of people. (White people being ruled by black
people in the case of this series.) Let me make it clear that I have the utmost
respect for what Ms Blackman does, it’s just that I didn’t connect with this
book.
Callie Rose
– Well this is the first time we’ve had the pleasure of Callie Rose’s
POV and I have to say she’s not had the best upbringing. From the main body of
the story (which is in the past) we see how she’s raised and the effects of
that. I didn’t particularly like her, I sympathise with her upbringing but
instead of allowing it to make her a stronger, better person she got swept away
by Jude’s lies. I feel that she was beginning to become filled with the hatred
that consumed her Uncle and for that reason I find it hard to like her. We all
know how I feel about Jude.
Sephy – Can
someone please explain to me where the Sephy from ‘Noughts and Crosses’ went? It’s just that the Sephy we have here
is a sliver of what she once was. I feel that she shrivelled up inside after
Callum died and didn’t want to find herself again. Now that’s fine, I mean if
you wanna be like that but it’s not fun to read. I want characters that are
bright and fill the page and refuse to be beaten down by circumstance.
Jasmine – Sephy
and Minerva’s mother. She’s been on the sidelines for the past couple of books
but with this one she gets a story, she’s the complete opposite of how she’s
been construed and that’s a good thing. Time has changed her for the better and
now she’s less about the appearance of perfection and more about repairing the
damage that caused. I like that she wasn’t ashamed to admit that she’d done
wrong and that she was forever trying to make up for that.
Overall this is a decent ending to the original trilogy (Why
add a book four? Seriously though? I hate when authors do that!) but I feel
that ‘Noughts and Crosses’ was
actually an incredibly strong stand alone novel. However back to ‘Checkmate’ I found a couple of the twists predictable and
the showdowns for me were obvious from the get go. I like Malorie Blackman’s
writing and how she manages to make people think about important issues such as
racism. The series is thought provoking and manages to capture the consequences
of these issues with an elegance that I just know I’d lack, credit where it’s
due. The premise is exemplary. The characters encourage you to feel strongly
towards them.
This
is a really good book, I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I would’ve liked to
which is why it’s got a three. I’d recommend it to people who like slow burning
plots that manage to reach an incredible conclusion.
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