That both are new transfers to an elite academy in which Miah goes from a black-majority to a white-majority student population also significantly alters the state of the racial element in their romance. For instance, feeling the pressure of racial expectations, Miah presents himself as simply another black kid from Brooklyn when actually his father is a successful filmmaker and his mother a successful writer. To classify it merely as a story of interracial romance is far less attributive than calling it a star-cross romance because the racial component is more intricate than “interracial” might imply. This is even true when discussing the novel’s story itself on a broadly superficial term. Racism is generally presented as this monolithic entity in America where every situation is always exactly the same. The built-in mechanics of plot device allow pursuit of other tangential aspects of the theme without having to expend undue effort on exposition. In fact, the whole point of pairing up a couple like Ellie and Miah is precisely to make readers recall the familiarity of all those precursors.

There is nothing original about the theme, of course (how could there be) but originality is definitely not the point. This idea fits as easily within Shakespearean tragedy as it does to forgotten moves of the 1970’s as it does to afternoon cartoon characters and it is on full display here. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.įrom Romeo and Juliet to Tony and Maria to Aaron and Angela to Helga Pataki and Arnold, the theme of a romantic couple doomed by the fates to failure has been one of the most solid and dependable tropes of fiction. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

If u come softly