Exceptional - simply exceptional

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This really is a book you need to go into as blind as possible. So what I'm going to try to keep this review vague as possible: two exceptional Black students, a boy and a girl, with normal teenage problems (dating unsuitable people, being secretly in love with your best friend, wanting to do everything possible to get into your dream college). But surround them with extremely privileged white students. And then someone knows all their secrets - and is willing to tell the whole school.

Faridah is a genius at building tension, sowing doubt in the reader, making you guess and flounder and worry right along with the protagonists. Who can you trust? Who might know something? And... At least it can't get any worse - or can it?

The second half of the book is an absolute whirlwind as things about both characters' pasts and the secrets that have been hinted at throughout come to light. And the epilogue really works to address the root problems rather than just leaving the book with small solutions