By Megan Amato
Content warning: racism, both personal and institutional
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s debut YA dark academia thriller Ace of Spades was blessed with good marketing. I immediately pre-ordered a copy after the author tweeted it and comped it as Get Out meets Gossip Girl. A few weeks after that, Illumicrate released a debut box with an exclusive UK hardcover signed edition with extra wee treats, and I couldn’t say no. I had high expectations for this book, especially after Twitter mutuals raved about it, and by the end of the book, I was the personification of the exploding head emoji.
There are only two Black students at Niveus Private Academy: Chiamaka, a chronic overachiever who fights twice as hard as everyone else to stay in the precarious position at the top of her school, and Devon, a talented musician with dreams of Julliard who prefers to stay in the shadows. When an anonymous source called the “The Aces” begins to expose their deepest secrets, Chiamaka and Devon band together to uncover the culprit. As they untangle the web of secrets and lies surrounding the plot against them, their carefully built lives begin to crumble, and friendships (or alliances in Chiamaka’s case) dissolve. Soon they both realize that the only person they can trust is each other, because it’s not just the act of one or a few but an insidious racist conspiracy that has sought to harm Black students attending Niveus for decades.
I am still in awe that this is the author’s debut. The layering in the plot and the motivations of the characters is done so flawlessly that you would expect Àbíké-Íyímídé to be a veteran in the genre. Both Chiamaka’s and Devon’s characters are well-developed and completely different from one another—an achievement hard done when both are told in the first person present. I didn’t have to look at the chapter head to see whose chapter it was; I could tell by the character’s confidence and place in the world around them. The pacing of the unfolding events and subsequent actions were spot on for the genre, and I found myself quickly engrossed in the story—and what a story it was!
One of the things I like most about this book is that no topic is off-limits—nothing is shied away from. Àbíké-Íyímídé doesn’t coddle her teenage readers (or her adult readers for that matter), she trusts them to understand the nuances of race and racism, sexuality and homophobia, gender and misogynoir, class and privilege, and how they all intersect. These themes are challenged in almost every part of the plot, from the differences in the main characters’ backstories and arcs, to how their individual proximity—or lack thereof, especially in Devon’s case—to whiteness change the ease in which they move in their worlds, to the far-reaching and malicious scheme that seeks to destroy them. The author moves every piece of the plot like pieces on a chessboard until, by the end, with chills up your spine and the weight of anxiety in your stomach: checkmate—but I will leave it to you to find out who plays the final piece.
I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Ace of Spades from your local bookshop and join in the collective gasp that emerges from every mouth at the last few paragraphs in the book.