Reviews with content warning for Violence - As de picas

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

As de picas by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

372 reviews

anniehayez's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

What a great book. The author (who wrote this in college 🤯) says she was inspired by gossip girl and that’s obvious. Any fans of the show would love this. It’s really well written. I love the Blair Waldorf esque main female character. The story tackles a ton of issues and points out both blantant and passive examples of racism. It took a little bit for me to get invested but I think that was because of the high school setting. I’m a grown adult so this was slightly less relatable. If I read this in high school it probably would have been 5 stars. Just a great social thriller. I’d recommend this to any gossip girl lovers, cult enthusiasts, or people who love a non conventional mystery.

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riosrm1015's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I was expecting more than this. The plot twist was very much a cop out it felt like. Also way too long

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mir_frog73's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Holy shit…. That was so crazy. I don’t really read mystery/thrillers but that was so incredible. Every time I thought it would let up it just got worse.

Spoiler

hot take but I’m happy the Jamie died and I hope chi killed headmaster ward 🤷🏼‍♂️ what can I say they are the worst </spoiler >

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bookobsessedmommy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I have mixed feelings about this book, but I'll start with a more technical review which is how I chose to rate it. Checke the content warnings! Chiamaka and Devon are compelling characters and the whole vibe of the book keeps you on edge. Its like Get Out, but make it high school. I think it's well written overall, but too long. There are whole scenes, like the situation with Devon's dad for example, that could have been cut with little to no change to the actual plot. The beginning drags and so do various parts of the book, which again I attribute to it being too long. The resolution is a bit abrupt, but the epilogue is a welcome addition. (I am a sucker for a wrap up) As for my personal feelings, I never would have picked this up if I knew how much trauma there was. I read primarily for enjoyment and escape, so this thriller/horror depiction of life in brown skin is a little too real and too scary for me. I was really into the strange mystery of it all for a while, but there are times when it feels like every painful stereotype has been thrown in here to tick things off like a depressing bingo card. Homophobia, racism (blatant and systemic), police brutality, mass incarceration, slut shaming, gang violence. I could go on, but you get the idea. I nearly DNFd multiple times, but I wanted to know what happened. The ending was both surprising and underwhelming, but I'm here for what it represents. Even with my mixed feelings, I would still give this author another shot after checking content warnings.

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booktechnerd's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense

5.0

The amount of stress and anxiety this book gave me was worth it in the end!

The first half of this book made me feel so uncomfortable because too many characters reminded me of people I knew in high school. I didn't trust any character and questioned everyone's motives until the very end. Reading this in high school would've made me extremely paranoid. I feel relieved that I'm an adult and my kids go to very diverse schools.

As for the overall story, I was grateful for the

Spoiler

protesters

, but it felt sort of anti-climactic. I wish that scene would've played out differently. It was a little too rushed, but the epilogue made up for it 1000%!

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micaelamariem's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I have been so busy but I finally finished my second read of the month! I just read Ace of Spades by Faridah Abike-Iyimide, a book published by Square Fish, an imprint of Macmillan. This book has been on my radar for a couple of years--I didn't know much about it other than it was dark academia and had BIPOC and Queer representation. I didn't need more information than that to decide I wanted to read it.

I'm so glad I finally did read it. What blows my mind is that the author, Faridah Abike-Iyimide is younger than me and was eighteen when she started writing this book. As an aspiring author, I'm both jealous and in awe. She's a British novelist who just graduated with her BA in English Literature and is now pursuing a Master's in Shakespeare Studies.

Ace of Spadesis a young adult thriller branded as "Get Out" meets "Gossip Girl" but personally, I felt like it was more "Pretty Little Liars." The novel jumps between two perspectives: Chiamaka, a Blair-Waldorf-Wannabe who wants to do anything to stay on top; and Devon, a young man who wants to stay under the radar until he gets into Juliard. In their senior year, anonymous message blasts start delving out secrets these two are hiding and publicly humiliating them. For some reason, these blasts are only targeting Chi and Von, the only two Black students at their high school. They need to get to the bottom of this before reputations are ruined...or worse.

For the most part, I thought this was a brilliant book! As aforementioned, I am in awe that the author was so young when she wrote it--but perhaps that's just because when I was eighteen, I was still in my angsty poetry phase. I thought the writing style really worked for this type of book and really captured the contrasts between Chiamaka's and Devon's personalities. While I didn't necessarily like Chi at first (she seemed spoiled and arrogant and unlikable), she definitley grew on me over time.

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The mystery in itself was thrilling too. As someone who is not usually into mysteries, I knew it was good when I was starting to tally my own suspects for who could be behind the blasts.

My one dislike of the book was the ending. That seems too vague--I'm trying not to give any spoilers away, but to put it a bit more specifically, it felt to me like there was too much unsolved. Maybe that is part of the point, the more I think about it, though. Maybe the author is trying to say that systemic issues can't be fixed overnight (which is a big theme of the book) but we need to do all we can to fix the system. Progress is slow, but we shouldn't stop moving forward. Still, I wish I could understand how we got from the last chapter to the epilogue.

Overall, I'd give the book four stars--would've been five if the ending was more satisfying to me, but it may be to others! I highly recommend this book.

That being said, there are a few content warnings! This book may be hard to read for some people as there are graphic descriptions of violence, racism, hints of sexual assault, bullying, classism, a portrayal of post-traumatic anxiety, and hints of murder.

If you're still interested in reading the book, try also checking the author out on Instagram here.

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sproutreads's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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mrmarshall591's review against another edition

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dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

When I started the audio book, I did not expect it to go the way it did. Although as I went through, I knew what was coming but not to the degree that it came. Wow.

Definitely a psychological thriller, with similar vibes to ‘Get Out’ (although both are completely different stories focusing on different aspects of horrors related to racism).

4 stars because there was a lot I wish was expanded upon, like a follow-up on characters such a Belle, Scotty, Andre and Jack.

Also, I absolutely love how on the author’s websites there is art depicting the major characters. I have a hard time visualizing things based on descriptions and that really helped! I only found it writing this review since I went searching for one of the character’s names.

I really enjoyed the author’s note, which mentions how the book was written over the course of her college career which is very symbolic to the course of the story.

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ashfrxns's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Content Warnings

erinamerritt's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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