Malorie Blackman (Noughts & Crosses Series)

Noughts & Crosses
An Eye for an Eye (novella)
Knife Edge
Checkmate
Double Cross
Everyone in the world should read these novels! Even if youjust read the first book (Noughts &Crosses), although you may not be able to stop! The main theme in the storyis racism: white people are Noughts, black people are Crosses. In this world,the Crosses rule over the Noughts. This brings a brilliant perspective and viewthat shows how different life could be, with only a small reality beingchanged.
A themeaffected by the racism is romance. It is seen as an abomination if a Nought anda Cross was to start a personal relationship; this doesn’t reflect the currentworld to the younger generation like me, yet you can imagine it causingcontroversy in the past. As a non-racist person myself and of the youngergeneration, I could view the situations in the novel with a lack of prejudicetowards the characters.
Thesenovels show how stupid racism is, and how it can cause unnecessary violencewhere there should only be peace. Being a romantic, I personally preferred the,well, romance, especially in the first novel and ongoing throughout the others.However, there is definitely action in these too! There is devious plans ofterrorism from the Noughts, whilst Callie Rose (a mix-raced and mislead girl)struggles in life, her mother (Sephy) tries to heal her broken heart, hergrandmothers (Meggie and Jasmine)try to heal the family. This struggle is down to the conflict between Noughts and Crosses, and made much worseby Jude’s meddling (Callie Rose’s uncle). Callum (the main male character) ispresent throughout the book, always in the background of the thoughts andactions of the characters, if not physically there.
The story is set in the firstnovel, and you see the outcome of this resolve throughout the other three inthe series. The series is very heartfelt and touching, with many moments whenyou will laugh, cry, or just plain enjoy it. I loved following the whole world,and it was written so well that you feel like you lived the lives with them. Atop series and a must read!