Book #32 for 2022: Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman - Book Bingo: K
I couldn't write this review without spoilers for the first two books.
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The second book in the Noughts and Crosses series picks up shortly after where the first book left off, so Callum is dead, executed, and leaving Sephy to raise their daughter Callie Rose on her own.
In this book, the main characters and narrators are Sephy and the absolutely vile Jude, Callum's brother. I noticed references to Jude having shot Sephy in an act of vengeance, which wasn't in the first book, but luckily the e-book that I bought includes a short story that tells of how this happened.
The main plot in this book involves Jude getting into a relationship with a cross woman, but then viciously assaulting her, and she dies later from her injuries. This leaves Sephy with a dilemma; either tell the truth, and leave Jude's mother with the prospect of losing her other son, or lie and let a murderer go free. There is also a subplot where Sephy joins a band where all the other members are noughts, because they realise it is the only way they will be able to get more gigs. A lot of Sephy's story also involves peoples' often shocking reactions to her having mothered a mixed-race child.
I really enjoyed this book, and the social commentary was once again really good; including people on TV making jokes about noughts that Sephy objects to, and Sephy's band being told in a cross nightclub that they had to enter through the back door. It was easy to compare the attitudes in this book to South Africa's apartheid, and also British attitudes, not only in the past, but also right now.
My favourite chapter took place in a restaurant, with Sephy objecting to a dish being called "blankers delight" (blanker being the racist term used for the noughts), and also summing up the points that the book was making in one sentence:
"We've had decades, centuries, to change people's attitudes but things are getting worse, not better."
I think there were a few brief moments when I felt sorry for Jude, but by the end of the book I was absolutely hating him; I'll be interested to see if he gets his comeuppance in later titles. The book ended with a cliffhanger, and although the excerpt from the next book, "Double Cross" was a bit spoilery, I am still keen to keep reading. I hope the BBC keeps adapting the novels for TV as well.
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That's a book beginning with K for the 2022 ljbookbingo challenge.
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam (M.C. Beaton)
Big Panda and Tiny Dragon (James Norbury)
Crawling Horror (Edited by Daisy Butcher and Janette Leaf)
Desperation (Stephen King)
Every Contact Leaves a Trace (Elanor Dymott)
Facebook: The Inside Story (Steven Levy)
G
House with No Doors (Jeff Noon)
I
J
Knife Edge (Malorie Blackman)
L
Mindset (Dr. Carol S. Dweck)
N
O
P
Q
Round the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne)
Survivors (Marcus Blakeston & Mark Astronaut)
The Truth is Out There (Thomas Bertonneau and Kim Paffenroth)
U
V
Wyntertide (Andrew Caldecott)
X
Y
Zoo City (Lauren Beukes)