Review of "Noughts and Crosses" by Malorie Blackman

I suppose this is not really aimed at me - it's Young Adult fiction - and maybe that's why I didn't like it. It's easy to read, with short chapters and un-challenging language, and a plot with plenty of emotion and action to carry the reader along. Still, I was a bit bored. And I can't see the point about writing about a fantasised, alternative-reality racism, when the real thing is everywhere and needs writing about.

Do young adult readers respond to an account of racism in which the positions of blacks and whites are reversed, and Black Africans have colonised white Europe? Maybe they do, though I can't see why. And there's so much about the scenario that's not really fleshed out. Why are the Blacks called Crosses and the Whites Noughts? Are the Crosses and Noughts roughly equal in number, or are the Crosses a tiny colonial elite? There's some suggestion that the Noughts were once enslaved, but we don't know how long ago this was...within living memory, like in the US? Or way back in history? Is this our Earth with a point of departure in history, or a parallel one? And so on...