So many lives balancing on a knife edge... (Knife Edge - Malorie Blackman)

Member Name: ScuzzieScuzz

Product:	Knife Edge - Malorie Blackman
Date:	17/01/09 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, heart-wrenching - profound racial messages...

Disadvantages: Doesn't have as much impact as first in the series.

Knife Edge is the second book in the Noughts and Crosses series and continues on the story of Persephone 'Sephy' Hadley. Written again in first person the chapters alternate this time between Sephy and Jude primarily, with some chapters telling the story from the view of Sephy's mum, Jasmine, and Callum's mum, Meggie.

Like Noughts and Crosses, this book carries on the exploration of racial prejudice in an innovative and inverted fashion. Malorie Blackman presents to us a world where coloured people, Crosses, were never the ones to be slaves but were in fact the slavers and white people - Noughts, who are historically the slavers are in fact the slaves. This message isn't as profound in this novel as it was in the previous, this novel tending to revolve around Sephy's personal plight, but the message is still very much there.

Plot - basic overview avoiding spoilers:

With Callum's demise in the previous novel, his lover Sephy is left to raise their 'halfer' child, Callie Rose alone. And it proves to be no easy task. Sephy must deal with the loss of Callum and the derision of everyone besides her closest family. A child who is half Nought and half Cross appears to be unacceptable to either side, and Sephy must deal with the disgust of the general public. Her world is then shaken to its very foundation by a letter received from a prison guard who claims the letter was written by Callum...

Jude, Callum's brother, becomes even more twisted and embroiled in the schemes of the Liberation Militia, the Nought freedom fighter cell. His hate for Crosses is reinforced by his brothers death, which he blames entirely on Sephy and for which he wants revenge. But then Jude does something that truly disgusts himself, he falls in love with a beautiful and open-minded cross called Cara. So confused is he by his confusing emotions that he commits a most heinous crime, and only Sephy can save him from hanging...

Characters:

Just like the first book, Blackman has presented us with incredibly deep and heart wrenching characters. Very human characters that are only to easy to identify with, understand and sympathise with.

Sephy's plight is so real and so very heart wrenching that I was constantly just wishing that Callum would walk through the door, wrap his arms around her and banish all her worries and problems.

Audience: Not suitable for younger readers due to violent scenes. Mature teens and adults who don't mind a more simplistic style of reading will appreciate it.

Overview:
Definitely worth the read. The message about the futility and unjustness of racial segregation is expertly portrayed in conjunction with a well written, moving and often chilling story with very real and human characters that alternatively warm your heart, make you cry and chill you to the bone. A very good read in my opinion.

Summary: Alternatively heart-breaking and chilling... well written. Recommended.