Shades of black, and shades of white

Well, once again, I'm reading a book several years after what I imagine to be the age of the target audience. In my mind, this shouldn't significantly diminish the quality of a book. While I accepted that Lois Lowry's The Giver and Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember had their faults, I realized that these faults would be acceptable to most younger readers, who hadn't been introduced to the likes of Ray Bradbury or Stephen King. So those books get a pass-- but how did this one do?

Naughts and Crosses, by Majorie Blackman, is a self-proclaimed thriller, set in a world where black is white and white is black. Literally-- the positions of European and African Americans have switched places, due to some overenthusiastic Dutch traders in the early 20th century. This is the most unique thing going for it. That means the book's going to have to work extra hard to stand out, because the reversal of blacks and whites in our society is not a novel concept. Ray Bradbury framed the concept brilliantly in his short story, "The Other Foot", in which blacks (having migrated to Mars) welcome a white into their society after he flees Earth.

I think the main reason that story worked is that it didn't exist solely for the concept of reversing racial positions. Bradbury framed the idea within science fiction phenomenons that he already worked well with-- nuclear holocaust, fantastic societies on other planets, etc. Meanwhile, the standout feature of Naughts and Crosses is that it's a romance book.

Oh, not too much. This is for young teenagers, mind you. Blackman doesn't go too far, barely taking her characters past first base. But the author seems to quickly realize that this is the only thing she has going for her. After a brief mention of twisted history, where black scientists have overshadowed white ones in every field, Blackman doesn't speak much about the world outside that of her protagonists.

Instead, we get another glorified Romeo and Juliet ripoff. Because, you know, we don't get nearly enough of those. Callum is a white naught, while Sephy is a black Cross, and their two families (previously close) have been ripped apart by a chance event three years prior to the beginning of the narrative proper. They do everything they can to see each other; we get all the paragraphs we want of them brooding over the nature of hate and love and prejudice; but other than that, not a lot happens.

But! You say. The novel is a thriller! Surely there must be something thrilling about it! And admittedly, things do happen. There is a terrorist plot, a hostage situation, an explosion, some shady politics, and a pregnancy.

Those are things, yes. And they keep the story moving, but only barely. You see, despite all these "events," Naughts and Crosses had a very hard time dragging me in. I went kicking and screaming, trying to find other better things to read in the meantime, like Spider-Man.

It's a tedious read. On the one hand, I admire Blackman for regularly switching between her two protagonists. It ensures that there are at least two characters who are not completely flat. (Only mostly flat.) On the other hand, that switching makes for very choppy storytelling, and it totally screws with the pacing.

Oh, the pacing. I'm not sure where to begin on this issue. Like most pulp fiction, Naughts and Crosses has arbitrary sections, broken up with dramatic title pages. "THE CONFESSION..." says one (although I'm not sure what that confession was). "THE WAY IT IS..." shouts another, though that says nothing of what the section is about. (And by the way-- yes, a lot of things in this book are punctuated with the annoying three-dot pause. Particularly the protagonists' names, when they're thinking about each other.)

Thing is, though, these sections don't have any bearing on the timeline of the story. Blackman rudely pulls us through half a year going to one chapter, and then the next five chapters will stay in the same ten-minute period-- and then the next three chapters will each jump forward a month. I had to work hard to figure out when each section of the book was taking place.

It's no secret, then, that I was disappointed by this book, because I had high hopes for it. Everyone in my class loved it in eighth grade. I shouldn't go into a book with such high expectations; but the thing is, it could have been a lot better. If we had heard more about the society outside of the bubble, and cut down on the lovemaking and faceslapping scenes with the families, maybe the story would have improved. Unfortunately, it's already obvious that what Blackman loves the most are the steamy scenes between Callum and Sephy.

The problem with writing a Romeo and Juliet rip-off is that there's not that much more to say about that kind of relationship. While it wasn't Shakespeare's best play, no one else has written it better! In any event, it's unrealistic to write a story where the world literally revolves around two characters. Life isn't like that-- just TV soap dramas, and bad pulp fiction like this one.