This book is about Ruby Winters, a 17 year-old girl who lived in South Africa during apartheid. Her mother is the owner of an art gallery, and her father is a lawyer. They are liberals, who believe in equality between the races. She is one of the most popular girls at her private school, she is a prefect, and has near-perfect grades, but constantly feels like she doesn’t quite belong. Raised to not see colour, race, or ancestry, she falls for a blue-eyed Afrikaans (someone with a Dutch ancestry) boy. Her family is being watched by the police, and we follow them as things keep getting more tense.
I really enjoyed this book! I realize that my description might not be the best (I plan on working on that), but I really did like it! I thought that this was an interesting idea for a book, as I have never seen this before. Generally, when you see books about first loves, they are full of drama, which I guess technically there was, but generally more of the political kind than anything else. It was sort of sweet when it was talking about love, but it mostly focused on a toned-down look at South African politics of the time. It was nice to read such a nicely done story, as usually books about teen love are over-focused on physical stuff, and I get really tired of it after a while. The characters worked well, and could have been real people from the past. They were very well written, and the book flowed well. It is definitely worth picking up if you see it.