It’s not often a book leaves you heartbroken – most books I read tend to have a fluffy ending where everyone lives happily ever after, but hopefully it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that I wanted to throw this book across the room and cry when I finished reading.

I’ve obviously heard of this book a lot in the past, but never really looked into what it’s about, I think I found this copy in a charity shop and was drawn in by the cover – but I had no idea what to expect, just that people said it was really good.

I think I personally found the start a little slow, and it took me a while to properly ‘get into’ the book – I think I was over a third of the way through when it really pulled me in and gave me an insatiable need to finish it as soon as possible.

I read the last two thirds of the book in one sitting, on a rather sunny Saturday afternoon in the garden. What’s black and white? The book. What’s red all over? Louise. The sunburn was worth it though.

I found the book so eye opening – a society where white people (the noughts) are weak, and the crosses have all the power. This shouldn’t be shocking, but everything in our history sadly points the other direction. A society where the noughts and the crosses are not supposed to intermingle, and doing so has devastating consequences.

“What was it about the differences in others that scared people so much?”

I feel like I could gush about this book and how much it broke me for days and days, but I don’t want to risk giving away any spoilers as I think if you’re reading this review and you haven’t read the book, you should immediately find yourself a copy.

The main characters Callum and Sephy were possibly one of my favourite parts of the book. I found that both of them at times were stupid teenagers that I just wanted to shake when I could see things going wrong, but their growing relationship was a lovely highlight against a dark backdrop of a plot.

As soon as I finished reading, I immediately ordered the next books in the series so that I can see what happens next – where the book ended was not okay with me!!

If I could rate just the last half of the book, I’d give it a full 5 stars, but because it took a while to really draw me in, I’ve settled on 4 – I get the feeling that the next book might be even better though!