Double Cross: Book 4 (Noughts And Crosses)

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I love characters who refuse to fit into neat boxes, who challenge the reader throughout their interactions. It is very encouraging that Blackman's series of books has been so successful and is widely read and made available in UK schools – as it quite rightly should continue to be. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Blackman portrays an engagingly vulnerable, multifaceted character in Tobey, who narrates the majority of the book, and through him creates for her readers profound moral and ethical dilemmas. Noughts and Crosses has been dramatised as a 6-part TV series which was first shown on BBC TV in March 2020, as well as dramatised twice as a theatre play and produced as a radio drama for BBC Radio 4.

This book took me the longest time to read and I stuck it out because I absolutely devoured the first three books in this quartet but as it seemed to me while I was reading this, it really was a waste of my time. If you've ever been in love, faced racism, bullying, domestic trouble, fights, then you'll love this book.As much as he wants us to think that his actions are purely driven by events that happen to those around him, it’s a very selfish reason that means events snowball out of control in the first place. Obviously Sephy and Meggie are featured, mentioned etc, but they do not head any of the chapters and i must admit part of me missed them, they are such well rounded and developed characters that not having them felt a bit like missing a friend.

He was incredibly realistic though, just the sort of person you can see getting caught up in the events of ‘Double Cross’. I mean ruins because it didn’t have to be, this book could have stood up by itself and been counted.

In 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children's literature, and between 2013 and 2015 she was the Children's Laureate. In 2005 she was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her contribution to children’s books, and in 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature. But for those interested in near future dystopias with a kitchen sink feel about them, The Witness by James Jauncey is an excellent read.

It’s such a shame because the original premise so was stellar, I think as a standalone Noughts and Crosses with a bit more work could’ve been amazing. Instead, the story focuses on the two rival crime gangs which rule the area where the two young people live, and how they impact on their lives and on the community. I can get why it was a good idea to market this as part of the series but for me it doesn’t work like that and that makes me sad.

Moreover – to consider the possibility of a third way – a society run entirely along non-racially defined power structures.