Wow! Just an amazing book from start to finish!

Chiamaka is queen bee, HBIC, rich, beautiful, and on track to become Valedictorian. Devon is well on his way to composing a piece that will grant him acceptance to Julliard, all he’s wanted since discovering his love of music. Neither one is prepared for what senior year at Niveus Academy holds. They are from different rungs on the social ladder, but will find themselves forced to work together to clear their names after school-wide texts from ‘Aces’ start revealing their secrets.

While the plot is both unexpected and exactly what you’d expect, the story was so engaging I found it difficult to put down. I enjoyed that I was able to make guesses and have them be accurate. There were plenty of twists and turns throughout.

The mystery is very enjoyable to read, but there are some difficult topics that are touched on as well.

I highly recommend this book!

This is a tough one to review since most of what I want to say would spoil the whole thing. I guess it's unavoidable, so you've been warned!

The story follows Devon and Chiamaka -- two seniors who attend Niveus Private Academy with hopes to go onto prestigious colleges. They also happen to be the only two black students at the school at the time. This little detail is dropped early, and it's pretty clear that they are going to be antagonized for their race from the earliest chapters. As they navigate typical teen drama as is traditional in realistic YA fiction, they also must deal with a mysterious someone named "Aces" who airs all their dirty laundry to the entire school. Eventually, they work together to discover the identity of this person and their motive for ruining their lives.

Now here's where I'm going to ruin everything, so if for some reason you've read this far after my first spoiler warning, you've been warned a second time! Here's what I had trouble with:

1) The execution of the social commentary/theme --> From what I can gather, the theme of this book is that institutional racism is all pervasive and nearly impossible to completely dismantle. And that people of color will need to face this together and fight to overcome it. And it is possible to overcome it? Great message! But it hinges on an entire town, including probably a few hundred self-interested teenagers and school teachers, keeping the world's biggest secret from people they constantly hang out with! There is not one redemptive white character, and the only two (maybe three, but the jury's still out on Terrell) characters who seem to be actual people and not some plot device are the two main characters. The motive of literally every single white person in this town in sabotaging the lives of two teenagers based solely on their race and it being a school "tradition" seems outdated, unrealistic, and reductive. The theme itself is important, as is the representation, but the way it was handled through the story telling can be arguably more harmful, especially for a younger audience. Sure, it introduces eugenics to teens, which is an important part of history to understand, but it wasn't informative or relevant to the setting.

2) Pacing --> The first half of the book dragged on, and events in the rising action felt repetitive. The last 30% was too fast, making it feel overdramatic and unrealistic. The ending also felt too tidy. I was left wondering how on earth these two kids would receive a high school diploma and be able to carry onto college when the ENTIRE SCHOOL BURNED DOWN. It felt like the author didn't know how to answer some of the questions this crazy plot line created, so she torched the place, and flashed forward 20 years.

3) Characterization --> I mentioned that I felt the only two characters that were more than just a plot device were Devon and Chiamaka in point 1, but I'm going to return to this in its own category because it needs to be addressed. So much of the main characters served the main theme of the book that at times, they felt more like caricatures rather than fictional human beings. Devon's character is based solely on YA tropes and stereotypes of black boys. Yes, he's gay, but seriously, everything else is a massive stereotype -- poor, single-parent home, mom who works non-stop, has to deal drugs to support, dad in jail, privileged to be able to attend the ritzy white school, disconnected from the people in his neighborhood. I've read this book a million times. Even the LGBTQ representation is pretty stereotypical as Devon struggles to come out to his mom and is forced to break up with his boyfriend because his ex is worried about his reputation after pictures of them in the same location get leaked. Chiamaka is less stereotypical, but some of the topics she brings up about the perception of her hair or her "bitchy" personality fell flat for me. They often felt like an afterthought, and the comments about her personality did not align with her actions or thoughts in the book. I did think the representation of her sexuality was handled in a far better way. It felt normalized and not a big deal, which is actually refreshing to read in YA!

If you've followed any of my reading habits and/or reviews in the past few years, you know I'm all about representation and getting as many windows and mirrors in the hands of my students. And you all know that I am incredibly careful about overpraising books for JUST representation. This book is filled with voices that need to be heard more in YA, but it just wasn't a great book for me. In 2021, I'm not sure I want my students to read a book that polarizes another group of people (no matter how much they might deserve it after literally hundreds of years of mistreating POC) or deals so exclusively with black trauma. I'm sure it would spark great discussion in my classroom, but there is also room for harm here too.

What a ride!

Someone (Aces) has some information and they aren't afraid of sharing it with everyone at their elite private school (and some key outside players). Who could it be?

Chiamaka is on her way in life. She has a persona to live up to and a throne to ascend to. Being named Head Prefect was supposed to be the start of the perfect senior year.

As a scholarship student who feels like he can't quite be his real self in front of most people, Devon just wants to keep his head down and nail his new music piece so he can get in to Julliard. He wants to help his mom and younger brothers have an easier life. When he gets naked a Senior Prefect he is shocked and it jusy seems to be the start of his years downward spiral.

This book is billed as a mix of Gossip Girl and Get Out and I think it fits that bill perfectly.

As I read I had so many guess as to Aces identity and could not put this book down until I made it through to get the full story.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Anything described as "Gossip Girl meets Get Out" is a MUST READ for me, and this book did not disappoint.

It's best to go into reading Ace of Spades without knowing too much ahead of time. Discovering the reason why Devon and Chiamaka are being harassed at the same time as they are figuring it out for themselves makes an already sinister and disturbing plot even more twisted and upsetting.

This book is full of social commentary, Black and queer representation, and so many plot twists. It was fantastic.

Highly recommended for older middle school and high school kids (and adults).

Oh my god. A new favorite.
This book is so good. It gets you so hooked up on the story, I've gotten chills reading this. The characters are amazing and the way it treats institutionalized racism and white supremacy is so well done. Also it explores queerness so seamlessly. It's thilling, and i have not enough words to describe how well done it is.

I CAN'T recommend it enough. I absolutely love it.

In Ace of Spades, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé has crafted a brilliant and suspenseful YA thriller. This book made me gasp and throw my phone (where I was reading the ARC) across the table at a certain point. The tension and reveals were brilliantly executed and the looming dread seeped from each page.

 Chiamaka and Devon are the only two Black students at the prestigious Niveus Private Academy, a school where both are praised for their excellence. The first day of their senior begins with an anonymous texter sending the well-hidden and protected secrets of Chiamaka and Devon to the entire school. It’s more than cyber-bullying; it’s a clear attempt to ruin their lives.

At the risk of spoiling the twists and the turns of this book, I won’t go into the plot too much or what the characters go through. There were countless times where my heart broke for Chiamaka and Devon. This book explores being Black, queer, and trying your best to fit in when the world is determined to set you apart.

This book has such a poignant and salient perspective and story to tell. It will leave you with a chill going down your spine. What a force.

5 stars.

My jaw literally dropped! I could not believe it! This was so not what I was expecting! If you love young adult mystery-thrillers, this has to be your next read! The premise got me interested, but I thought I was going to get another generic someone-is-after-me-because-popularity story, but oh my goodness, this was crazy! There was so much more depth and intrigue to this novel than your average rich school drama. The mystery kept me hooked, the characters were so vibrant they kept my heart in it, and the twists totally blew me away! Was it 100% believable? Of course not, but in what YA novel do the kids actually go to trustworthy adults for help? Never! It's like, YA rule #1: teens gotta do it all by themselves. Did that ruin the fun? Not at all! This was an incredible debut novel and I think this is going to for sure be at the top of everyone's 2021 Best Reads list! I'm going to be bothering everyone to read this now, because it was so shocking! Absolutely loved it!

5 stars
Read this book right now!
Faridah writes beautifully and this book is a thrilling mystery which will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time.

This book is a wild and thrilling read. This is Mean Girls meets Pretty Little Liars but with so much more depth. This novel is fantastically written, alternates points of view, and tackles true life , raw situations. This dark thriller kept me guessing until the final, shocking reveal.

It’s Senior year and - is naming thier Prefects for the year. Chiamaka, “Chi” and Devon, the only black students at a prestigious school are chosen to represent their Senior years. Chi has climbed the social and academic ladder with a trail of secrets she sworn to protect. Devon is a hard working music student that feels invisible, and works hard academically. He also has skeletons in his closet. Immediately after assembly, student phones begin to to ding with messages from “Aces” exposing secrets that could leave their academic and social careers forever irreparable. They two form an unlikely bond and find and confront Aces. What they discover will leave you breathless, disheartened, and ultimately infuriated how deep “Aces” involvement is.

I was given an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book for this honest review!

i am!!!! a mess!!! this was so good!!!

I will admit this book caught me off guard. As an educator, the twist absolutely horrified me, but I think it is a necessary social commentary.

I think the characters were well developed—flawed but likeable—and the plot was appropriately fast-paced.

The book has been dubbed as Gossip Girl meets Get Out and it definitely fits the description. This has been one of my most anticipated reads of the summer and it did not disappoint at all. One word of advice while reading this story is to NOT trust ANYONE in this story. You wouldn’t believe how many times I had my heart crushed when twists were revealed. 😩😩

“I learned when I was younger to keep how I really felt buried, deal with feelings later, on my own. I’m good at burying things in deep boxes in my mind. I’m good at being okay most of the time. Until I’m not, and the boxes burst open and I explode.”

I related to Devon so much while reading this story. As someone who deals with anxiety issues I understand all to well about burying things deeply in the boxes in my head.

“I hate how they have the power to kill my future, kill me. They treat my Black skin like a gun or grenade or a knife that is dangerous and lethal, when really, it’s them. The guys at the top powering everything.”

Amen!

I would have liked a little follow up with one of the characters, but other than that this was a very solid and exciting debut by Faridah Abike-Iyimide.

What happens when you take elements of the movie Get Out and turn it into a dark academia YA novel with queer characters? You get this stellar debut from Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. It's a phenomenal book that I devoured in one sitting and I love how the mystery and suspense turned out. There were a couple times when some of the choices the two main characters made seemed a little too unbelievable for me but when you stack it against everything else going on, I can let it go. Ace of Spades is a stunning story about queer, black youth that will sit with you for days and weeks to come and I truly cannot recommend this enough.

OMG I CAN'T BEGIN TO EXPRESS HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS BOOK. First of all this is the perfect debut novel. This was a perfect way for this author to introduce themselves. From the moment I read the first sentence I was in love. The way the writing flowed making it super easy to read. Then came the mystery! The plot was engaging giving us the next reveal at the right time and each reveal being more spicy than the previous. I did enjoy everything but at the same time hated it. Seeing those kids suffering like that because of racism. It was so sick and twisted. I had to rest down the book multiple times just to keep my cool because it was so hurtful. Especially the way Devon was outed.

I don't often read mysteries/thrillers, but Faridah Abike-Iyimide's debut is MASTERFUL. The characters were really well developed, and the mystery was so intriguing and exciting to unravel. And can I just say THIS IS WHAT A DARK ACADEMIA NOVEL SHOULD BE. I *really* dislike the erasure of discussions of elitism and white supremacy in academia with the popularization of the "dark academia aesthetic," but this book does an excellent job of exploring the specific kinds of oppression queer BIPOC face, especially in academic contexts, and I appreciated the presentation of Chiamaka and Devon combating racism in this space.

PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND PICK THIS BOOK UP.

Thank you to Netgalley for this advanced copy of Ace of Spades!

Ace of Spades follows two different perspectives, Chiamaka and Devon, top of their class and the only two black kids their prestigious high school. Things are going good until a mystery texter known as “Aces” starts sending out messages, all conveniently only targeting Chi & Devon. With all their secrets coming out, it’s only a matter of time until something deadly happens 😈

This book is pitched as Gossip Girl meets Get Out, which I’m loving, but also I’m liking the social commentary and the difficulties being queer and black both characters are facing.

Likes:
-the two main characters perspectives are friends, helping each other out, that don’t turn into a romance between them. I like that they had their own lives and story plot lines

The only reason I’m taking off a star is bc I feel like the beginning kind of dragged and I wish we could have spent more time with chi and Devon fighting against aces!

I don't even know what to say about this book other than everyone needs to read it. W O W

Thanks to #NetGalley and publishers for the ARC in exchange for the honest review of #AceOfSpades

I was not expecting the twists that this book provides the reader and it kept me glued to the pages wanting to know who was involved, why, and how would it all turn out.

Devon and Chiamaka are the only two black students at this private academy and they have both been chosen as prefects their senior year. What they don't expect is for their world to start falling apart without any clue as to who or by whom. The answer will surprise you.

This YA novel includes many topics including racism, LGBTQ, death, drugs, sexuality, and so much more. But all of these topics wind together to create an amazing tale that will appeal to many different readers. The chapters alternate between Devon and Chiamaka's point of view and it provides the reader with different views of the same situation. We also see how these two characters handle the situation at hand and if their upbringing plays a part in their decisions. Chiamaka is from a family of wealth while Devon is at the academy on a scholarship, this means they handle situations quite differently but it plays to their advantage in the end.

The tension builds as the story progresses, but the real excitement is in the last 10% as everything comes to a head. There are so many things that are unbelievable, but believable at the same time. I think my jaw might have dropped a few times in disbelief. But sadly, I'm sure much of this can still be found across the world and that saddens me in how we have progressed over time in our thoughts and actions of other people no matter their background.

This thriller will definitely keep you on your toes. The epilogue is wonderful and the last line of the book?  Oh my! Things do come full circle.

We give this book 5 paws up.

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé is a terrifying young adult thriller that crosses Pretty Little Liars with Get Out. Chiamaka and Devon, the only two Black students at their private school, begin their senior years as prefects, putting them both in the running for valedictorian. But when Aces, an anonymous bully, starts to release damaging secrets about them both, they must figure out who’s targeting them before their bright futures are completely out of reach. It isn’t long before Chiamaka and Devon discover the conspiracy isn’t as simple as locating one random bully. Their entire high school perpetuates a system of racism built to tear them down.

I have to be honest and say I groaned a bit at the Pretty Little Liars premise before I started reading Ace of Spades because what’s interesting about that? Beautiful people misbehaving at a fancy school with enough networks and funds to ensure continued success and wealth for all who walk those hallowed halls? Yawn. But I’ve never been more pleased to be proven wrong.

Àbíké-Íyímídé masterfully builds tension and suspense as Aces preys on her characters, slowly tearing them down, making readers just as anxious waiting on the next bombshell.And just when you think you’ve got it figured out, you realize the great mystery is you weren’t thinking big enough. This novel exists at the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexual politics, and it sheds light on the nefarious microaggressions society uses daily to plant seeds of doubt that make us question the existence of any of it. Protagonists Chiamaka and Devon are complex and interesting, and they’re so much more than they appear on the surface as Àbíké-Íyímídé carefully shows us the way each character has built themselves up over the years, and how a prickly disposition, an aloof personality, or something as simple as a hairstyle is actually armor. And it’s a good thing, too, because it turns out they needed it.

The most striking part of this novel is the doubt the protagonists experience, particularly when they guess quite early in the plot that institutional racism is at the heart of the conspiracy against them. Both Chiamaka and Devon dismiss the possibility immediately, given the reality of racism is so prevalent in their lives that it seems almost too obvious a threat to single out since it touches every part of their lives already. Chiamaka’s family is wealthy, yet she hides the parts of herself that highlight her Nigerian-Italian heritage in order to change herself into what she believes will get her ahead in a society with predetermined ideals for success and worth, while Devon strives to escape the parts of his upbringing and sexual identity that he believes will prevent him from achieving his dreams. Both characters have spent so much of their lives fighting to escape the pitfalls of systemic racism that they blamed themselves—their past actions, sexual preferences, and histories—before ever considering they were victims of a system built specifically to target people who look like them, who dare to be great.

Ace of Spades never shies away from how all-encompassing and rotten the system is at its very core, no matter how much the characters or even the readers may want to reject or deny that horror. That thought distortion is a product of the very system. And still, I found myself constantly taking a step back to wonder if every person and thing involved in the conspiracy was too much, but really, it’s not. The novel features an abundance of bad actors, like the truly insidious Ace of Spades campers and the Niveus students; some, like Belle and the legacy families, are guilty of continuing to reap benefits from established systems even though they recognize it’s wrong; and others, like Terrell, are pulled into these larger plots because other parts of the system (like health care) already hold them hostage. In spite of their varying levels of involvement, every character played a part in propping up the current systems that perpetuate harmful, outdated narratives. That only means everyone must work together to dismantle and rebuild institutions that perpetuate systemic racism so that they no longer disadvantage some people in order to elevate others.

When a novel includes an epilogue, I’m typically already done with the story and seldom feel the need for follow-up, but Ace of Spades surprised me here as well. Without spoiling the end, I’ll only say that I like how all the problems Chiamaka and Devon identified throughout the course of the novel did not simply vanish. One victory alone cannot so easily vanquish injustice and inequality kept alive by hardened roots that have been strangling our society for centuries.

Ace of Spades is an explosive debut from Àbíké-Íyímídé that uses the high school landscape as a model for the very institutions that continue to shape the world after graduation. If at times it seems sensational, that’s only because you’ve allowed yourself to forget it’s all real. It’s a quick read, both eye-opening and validating, and an excellent way to encourage discussions among young adult readers about the injustices of systemic racism and the importance of fighting against it.

This is being described as #GetOut and #GossipGirl and I’m not sure there is a more accurate description!
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At the prestigious Niveus school Devon and Chiamake have been selected to be two of the four senior prefects. The odds are in their favor that one of them will be valedictorian. The year is starting off on a good foot until someone named Aces starts flooding the school with damaging text messages.
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The text messages are damaging enough but they soon become dangerous as the cards are stacked against them. I do not want to give too much away but in my opinion this book succeeds in a way that Get Out does. It delivers a message with a punch but this time at a YA level. This book has me literally at the edge of my seat and I loved the ending. This is a book that needs to make its way to the screen!
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