Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

353 reviews

emviolet's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.25

i love the description of gossip girl x get out; it doesn’t become incredibly clear where some of those influences come in until later in the book, and it has a slightly slow build, but once i hit around 50% things started to really get crazy. i just kept envisioning all the bad people with those creepy jordan peele smiles and it is….yikes. i think this is incredibly effective horror, because nothing unbelievable happens for the most part, and while there is violence, it’s not the scariest part….it’s chilling because of all those intricate aggressions we see through the entire book. 

and hearing the author’s note at the end saying she started this draft when she was 18??? WOW. i can only imagine how her voice is going to grow if this is where she’s starting so young. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

korikam's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

stvrlight's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious sad tense fast-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? N/A

4.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

laurastronaut's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

gildedspines's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

venusdapoopiehead's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious fast-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

3.0

it’s almost like chiamaka was made to be unlikeable on purpose, which is exactly what she is. she’s nothing but a privileged, people pleaser who kisses the ass of white people who don’t give a fuck about her, and by the time she came to her fucking senses it was almost too late. some of the shit that happened probably wouldn’t have happened had she learned some common fucking sense. i just couldn’t connect with her or even devon, and even though i felt immense sympathy for him, i still just didn’t really feel much of a connection. i cared more about just finding out what the mystery was than the characters, to me they just felt like cliches or tropes almost. think about it, there’s the introverted unpopular boy who’s different from everyone else and has a miserable life, suddenly getting thrusted into the spotlight, and then there’s the mean bitchy popular girl with a dark past/has a different side to her who gets knocked down a peg. i’ve seen these tropes before, so therefore it’s nothing new really. when it came to the plot i feel like the author was having way too much fun during the writing process and was like “you know what let’s just add a bunch of crazy shit to it”, like there was twist after twist after twist, like damn girl atleast gimme a moment to process the other shit i just found out about 😭 it was just slightly overwhelming for my liking.

nonetheless i liked the conversations about race and how society purposefully makes it so that black people don’t succeed, but again, i’m black, i know and have dealt with these kinds of things, so again it was nothing new. not much about this book surprised me or made me learn anything new.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

nerdybookguy's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Genuinely could not put it down- addicting! 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

brynalexa's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

The beginning of this novel was slower than I expected for a thriller (not my usual genre, neither is YA). I was frustrated when the two main characters hadn’t met a third of the way through the book. The story picked up toward the end. 

This story is very Pretty Little Liars meets Get Out and I fear that if you aren’t a fan of both of those, you might not get through the book. 

While the overall twist was quite predictable, the smaller twists and endings weren’t so it didn’t completely set me off. What did put me off a bit was the absolutely ridiculous choices the characters make…
YOU KNOW YOURE BEING WATCHED STOP DOING THINGS YOU DONT WANT SHARED!
Teenagers, am I right? 

Also, gay! 😍
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mad_woman_in_the_library's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings