Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé is a New York Times Best Selling Author, who in 2021, published Ace Of Spades- a thriller novel that follows the only two black students in a predominantly white school called Niveus. The novel has often been described as a ‘Get Out’ meets ‘Pretty Little Liars’ situation, because of how the themes of horror and dark academia come into play throughout the book. There’s Chiamaka Adebayo, a Nigerian and Italian American who’s at the top of her class and one of the most popular girls at Niveus, who initially comes off as unfriendly. There’s also Devon Richards, an African-American student who’s not as popular, lives in a rough area, but has a great love for music, and dreams of pursuing music at university, and who’s more passive than Chiamaka but still stand-offish.
Initially, it seems like the book has a positive start when Chiamaka and Devon are elected as Niveus’ senior class prefects, which is good for Devon’s university application, and good for preserving Chiamaka’s social status. The plot turns dark when an anonymous texter, called ‘Aces’ starts sending threats to Chiamaka and Devon, which then leads to Devon being outed by having a private video of him and a student being leaked, as well as Chiamaka being framed for stealing, or Aces threatening to tell everyone how she was involved in a car crash which killed someone. As bad as it already sounds, the harassment from Aces gets worse as the book goes on. Chiamaka and Devon then team up with each other to find Aces and put a stop to the anonymous texts and harassment. I find this element of the book a really interesting twist and a homage to the show ‘Pretty Little Liars’ where an anonymous character called ‘A’ begins to reveal the secrets of the main characters.
As the book goes on, it leads you to suspect who Aces could be:
- there’s Jamie; who has a friends-with-benefits relationship with Chiamaka, and was also involved in the car crash with her.
- There’s Scotty, both Chiamaka and Devon’s ex-boyfriend who was in the video that Aces leaked of Devon.
- There’s also Belle; Jamie’s girlfriend, who has a reason to go against Chiamaka due to her and Jamie’s relationship.
- Finally, there’s the headmaster; when Chiamaka and Devon turn to him for help stop the harassment from Aces, he tries to blame Chiamaka and Devon themselves for the harassment and suggests that they’re just doing it to each other to mess up each other’s chances of getting into university.
Because of the eerie feel of the book, and the fact that Faridah can create this ‘nowhere to run, nowhere to hide’ atmosphere through her writing style and the endeavours that Chiamaka and Devon experience, it makes the twist of finding out who Aces is so disturbing but so exciting.
As a young adult novel, Faridah can address themes such as institutional racism, sexual assault, violence and harassment without holding back. She even addresses institutional racism subtly, as Chiamaka is described as straightening her hair for school, because of the assumption that the natural state of her hair wouldn’t be acceptable when everyone else’s (apart from Devon’s hair) is straight or slightly wavy. I also appreciate the initial contrast in Devon’s and Chiamaka’s characters- it seems that Chiamaka tries her hardest to fit in whilst Devon doesn’t try as hard to conform to his surroundings.
I’d recommend this book to anybody but with a warning due to the heavy themes mentioned. Faridah’s writing style is easy to follow but creative as she’s able to illustrate in your mind what Chiamaka and Devon are going through, which can help readers deepen their empathy for the characters, as well as lead readers, to want to see a good ending for Chiamaka and Devon, regardless of what you thought of them at the beginning of the book. My only critique of Ace of Spades is that the ending felt a bit like a rushed fever dream due to the jump from the height of the dilemma to the ending that Chiamaka and Devon receive. I believe that instead of an abrupt ending and an epilogue, Faridah may have done well in continuing Chiamaka and Devon’s story, which I 100% would read.