One Drop

LoveReading4Kids Says

YA - NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNGER READERS

Part of the Ruled Britannia series, and set in the same world as Melvin Burgess’ Three Bullets, Peter Kalu’s One Drop is a punch-packing, thought-provoking dystopian novel. Written in urgent style, this thrusts readers into an unforgettable journey through the worst of humanity, with Britain governed by the white supremacist Bloods.

When Black Radicals Axel and Dune are arrested for being part of the Resistance, they’re taken to an Evangelical Realignment Centre and implanted with SIM chips designed to brainwash recipients with the Bloods’ ideology of a “brave new world” that’s “Clean. White. Beautiful.”

When the chips take effect, “they start rewriting people’s memories, their sense of who they are, what they believe in. They drip-feed Bloods propaganda till it takes over their minds.” The chips can “make a Muslim into a Christian. Have black folk believing they’re white. LGBT declare they’re straight.”

In the light of the current cultural climate — a world in which institutional and individual racism continues to cause deaths, a world in which women’s reproductive rights are being eroded — the description of the Bloods’ steady coming-to-power is especially pertinent and makes One Drop something of an electrifying, challenging wake-up call, with the love and resistance of its main characters driving an unforgettable story.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter whose lifelong love of books began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About One Drop

In war-torn Britain, inseparable Black Radicals Axel and Dune are arrested. With SIMs implanted in their heads, they are placed in a prison camp for those who defy the Bloods' white supremacist government.

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