Set in a dystopian world where racial roles are reversed, two star-crossed lovers, Callum and Sephy fight for a more just, non-segregated world.

Crosses, like Sephy Hadley, dark-skinned and wealthy, hold great positions of power and privilege in their society. Additionally, Sephy is the daughter of famed politician, Kamal Hadley.

Noughts, like Callum, pale and fair-skinned, are considered to be banes to the Earth, with limited jobs and almost no access to the unfair privileges doled out to Crosses. From opening the same door, or even bathrooms, everything is segregated and unjust.

Until Sephy and Callum meet, two opposers to the unfair world they live in.

• Noughts and Crosses, by Malorie Blackman

When I first picked up this book, the first one of a long-going series, I thought it would be another stereotypical, apocalypse, save-the-world with a spark of romance plot. What I got instead was a powerful story, a testament to what racial prejudice leads to in reality and in history. It calls out the inbred inequality in the world, and how so many fight to defy it, every single day.

• The book explores very upsetting and deep topics about racism and its adverse effects on the youth and older generation. However, it relays a powerful message about the importance of accepting and acknowledging every person as a human being, regardless of the colour of their skin, or the background they’re from.
• The book simply drums home the rights we should all share and have access to, while still being able to celebrate our uniqueness.
• The series is speculative fiction, describing an alternate history, which really makes you think about how different the modern world could have been. Would racial roles be reversed? Could we have prevented a world filled with hate and war? It’s a very thought-inducing question.
• There are links to real-life movements, like the Civil Rights Movement, and class differences in the UK.
• Sephy and Callum both undergo powerful character development, and watching their determination through all their hardships sets an inspiring messages for the young people reading this book.
• The terrorist organisations, riots and continued hate for Noughts, highlights a particularly flawed and violent world, one we ignore sometimes.

All in all, Noughts and Crosses is must-read. It is an incredibly effective story that manages to highlight real issues and emphasise on how we must acknowledge these problems to be able to solve them. It’s a modern-day tale of star-crossed lovers, race, and violence, and it challenges our perceptions of truth, and the boundaries that limit race and power. I would highly recommend this book.

Signing off…