The Guardian ranked Noughts & Crosses #88 in its list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. [15] Awards and nominations [ edit ] She has been awarded numerous prizes for her work, including the Red House Children’s Book Award and the Fantastic Fiction Award. Malorie has also been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In 2005 she was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her contribution to children’s books, and in 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature. She has been described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’. Alone in the house together, Sephy and Callum have sex, and Sephy instantly bursts into tears afterwards. Jude and Morgan return before Sephy and Callum are fully dressed and while Sephy is still crying. They conclude that Callum raped Sephy, and they share that someone told the police about them: police arrested Leila, Pete is dead, and Andrew is gone. Jude and Callum fight and while they’re distracted, Sephy runs away into the woods. Callum finds her before Jude or Morgan can, and he points her toward safety. Before she leaves, Sephy shares that Andrew is working with Mr. Hadley—Andrew is the man she saw meeting with Mr. Hadley years ago. Sephy gets home safely, and Callum, Morgan, and Jude split up for their safety. You're a nought and I'm a Cross and there's nowhere for us to be, nowhere for us to go where we'd be left in peace."

I just....there were so many moments where hate spewed from the two main characters and it broke my heart. They loved each other, but all these horrible situations kept happening where Callum's class would show and he would get this visceral feeling where he resented all the crosses (naturally and understandably), including Sephy. It's so easy to group those we are closest to with a bad situation and I found it to be very realistic-but it still broke my damn heart. Each time they'd overcome something, another obstacle catapulted itself right in their way, each situation more venomous than the last. It was a great look at the struggle between different races and the battles that can come with class and hierarchy. I felt it to the bottom of my soul, and it definitely flipped the coin-quite a bit. And I know it's all about we can overcome prejudice and just share the love together, but to me that is not the underlying agenda of the book at all. That's just the hook... YMMV My emotions are not letting me gather my thoughts hence I'll just write few things which I can remember off the top of my head and then shut up and go away in search of another box of tissues. Masali continued: “Sephy is a very privileged character and person. Playing her helped me recognise my own privileges that I have, whether that’s within the world or within South Africa. I think she made me question a lot of things I was doing out of ignorance and things I needed to unlearn and change and grow within myself.The romance is just, no. Racism is terrible but once one character has harmed another, it's best to no longer run with the romance angle. Storyline dangerously normalizes troubling relationship behaviors. Much of the plot was predictable. There were few, if any, surprises. I predicted Lynette's suicide, Gabe joining the Liberation Militia, and Callum's dad's suicide quite easily.

I could move my hands and... And. Anything I liked. Caress or strangle. Kill or cure. Her or me. Me or her." Meggie McGregor: Supporting character in all books. Callum's mother, who had been Sephy's nanny until Jasmine fired her. She convinces Sephy to move in with her and is very close to Callie Rose. However, a threat to call social services about Callie Rose estranges Sephy from her.

"Representation really does matter"

Callum gets home one day to find Jude and Lynette exchanging blows. To stop all three children from fighting, Dad tells Jude and Callum why Lynette is ill: three years ago, she and her Cross boyfriend were beaten for being in an interracial relationship. One night, Lynette leaves the dinner table to go on a walk. Hours later, police come to the house and deliver the news that Lynette was hit by a bus and killed. They say it was an accident, but Callum discovers a letter from Lynette under his pillow admitting she committed suicide. He vows to keep this secret. At about the same time, Sephy’s mother attempts to commit suicide but survives.

I think Sephy and Callum's romantic ties could've been better portrayed and in maybe more subtle cues within many of the overarching punches. Somehow I wanted more from it, though I saw the conflict between them and understood that while there were aspects that drove them apart, it was an appreciation and respect for each other that kept them close. Towards the end of the book, I had a problem with the sequencing leading up to the ending - I understood the context, but the development didn't match to me and I don't think many people would get the significance of that parallel and turn in the conflict for the social attitudes of the time/issue it's mirroring. The story narrative switches between the two perspectives as both make sense of the world they live in, I found the scene were Callum is questioning why there’s no references to any noughts in the school curriculum just so powerful. The two are then surprised by the rest of the gang, and Jude and Callum point their guns at each other; Sephy takes advantage of the confusion to flee. The story ends with Callum and Jude shooting at each other.This is an original, intelligent, perceptive and though-provoking series of books – and whilst squarely aimed at the Young Adult market, it clearly transcends the restrictive boundaries of that genre. Callum is effectively an alternative ending to Noughts and Crosses. This book’s events fit seamlessly into the story’s timeline, to the extent that Callum could have been the ‘actual’ ending! I also loved how it is so obvious where this book starts, in the context of the Noughts and Crosses timeline, so that I knew exactly what had just happened, and what events were about to happen. Persephone "Sephy" Hadley is a Cross and the daughter of a wealthy senior politician, Kamal Hadley, who later becomes Prime Minister. Callum McGregor is a Nought, and they used to play together when Jasmine Adeyebe-Hadley, Sephy's mother, employed Meggie McGregor, Callum's mother, as a nanny. Ever since Jasmine fired Meggie, however, Sephy and Callum's friendship has been secret, as such interracial friendships are frowned upon by society.

You also understand that Callum's family is the victim of oppression in more than one dimension (his mother was fired from her job, subverting the education of one child - Jude - towards another's. The other in this case being Callum.) Callum and Sephie live in a social climate that makes it very difficult for them to be friends. The story doesn't do it in a way that obviously milks the dramatic contexts. Callum wants an education, though his family pushes him with respect to his achievements. Sephy's in an isolated environment with respect to her father's ranking and everything she does gets put across in a measure of her "privileged" lifestyle. So when Callum, pretty much the closest person she has to a friend, is allowed to attend her school among a small group of Noughts - it hits very close to home in its parallels to what happened with integration of the schools/working against the Jim Crow "separate but equal" measure in our real society. Noughts & Crosses is written alternately in the voices of Sephy and Callum, in short chapters that grant the two differing perspectives. There's pain and tension here, and anger - it's a mature book, and doesn't shy away from the worst of human nature. It's well written, with both Sephy and Callum growing older, more mature, more disillusioned. For a book that's not set anywhere in particular, about a world that doesn't literally exist, it's a very real story because it pokes right at the heart of so many of our problems and makes no apologies for forcing us to look at ourselves. While she is sleeping, Callum literally thinks about how he could kill her at any moment, and how he wants to.

Jasmine Dharma Ninah Adyebe-Hadley: Sephy and Minerva's mother, who became an alcoholic. She used to be good friends with Ryan and Meggie McGregor, as Meggie used to work for her. She is diagnosed with breast cancer and, drinking less than before, steals and activates Jude's bomb, killing her and Jude in the process to protect Sephy and Callie Rose. Tobey's guilt over Rebecca's death leads him to believe he no longer deserves Callie Rose, estranging himself from her. Sephy and Nathan marry, and she's pregnant with a son, Troy, by Callie Rose's next birthday. During the party, Tobey and Callie Rose have a huge argument over his continued secrecy about his involvement in McAuley's death. He decides to end his and Callie Rose's relationship for good. The book Noughts and Crosses is an alternate reality fiction based in a 22nd-century parallel universe. Their world is similar to the reality of the 21st century, with equivalent types of jobs, of government, and so on. Racial inequality is the driving force of the storyline, and there are few laws or constitutional protections to prevent discrimination. There are two races in the book: the Crosses (darker-skinned people) are the dominant race with the individuals owning most of the wealth, good jobs, different and better schools etc. The second race, the Noughts (lighter-skinned people) are at the poorer end of society usually doing manual labour or being servants to Crosses, with poor schools – if any at all. Attempting to provoke Jude, Sephy tells him that Kamal gave Callum the choice to save his life or to keep their baby and Callum chose their baby. Jude loses his temper and tries to shoot her, but his gun jams. Minerva, in an attempt to save Sephy and herself, runs towards the front door and screams for help. She fails and Jude shoots her in the shoulder.