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Chain Gang All-Stars

av Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

MedlemmarRecensionerPopularitetGenomsnittligt betygOmnämnanden
6172837,733 (4.14)41
"The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences. Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a "new and necessary American voice" (Tommy Orange, New York Times Book Review)"--… (mer)
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» Se även 41 omnämnanden

Visa 1-5 av 25 (nästa | visa alla)
It's one of the best books I've read this year. I haven't given any book five stars this year yet. I don't really like all the stars system, as it is so difficult to rate very different books on the same scale and often the books I don't give five stars stay longer with me than my 5-star reads.

This might be one of those that stays with me. At the moment I'm digesting the ending (or a new beginning?). I'm not even completely sure what happened there. Did Staxxx cheated LT? There were many ways to end it - was this the best, smartest, most unexpected, realistic one?

I haven't read much books like this - I haven't even read the Hunger Games. But it felt really original to me. Yes, some might hate the footnotes, but I actually liked that stylish element. There were mainly two types of them - some glimpses from the background of lesser characters or some factual information about the carceral system.

The writing was very good. I think I give more and more points to a book if I find the writing beautiful. I loved the short chapters and how all these different short stories of various actors were interwoven forming a complex pattern. Despite, the difficult topic and the clear abolitionist message, the narrative was not preachy, the criminals were not cleaned of their guilt, they were complex, haunted human beings formed by their environment, failed by the system. There was only one Link who was innocent and who first killed on the BattleGround.

And yes, the Games. Wow! I just loved the imagination and the realness of the games. They reminded me of a high-resolution computer game and I think I often resorted to that idea to cope with imagining real people killing real people and all the country and the world watching them. Could it really happen? It is really scary to think about it. The story line of the spectators - Emily and Wil - was the most disturbing one of all. I loved all the slang of the games, all the technology in the book, which we're not really far from. However, I really hope we are far from Chain-Gang All-Stars. ( )
  dacejav | Mar 24, 2024 |
I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it's this.

This is not the kind of book I pick up. From being set in an alternative version of the world to the violence of the deathmatches that form the backbone of the novel, I'm not the intended reader here. But Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah wrote one of the most brilliant and inventive short story collections that I have read, one that if you haven't read, you should go right now and read it. So what do you do when an author you think is uniquely talented writes a novel you don't like the look of? If you're me, you end up reading it anyway, pushed by its inclusion in the Tournament of Books.

In this version of the world, which is very close to what actually exists, prison inmates can opt into fighting a series of deathmatches and if they survive for three years, they will be freed. While our real prisons are often shockingly terrible places, in this world there's the addition of a taser-like weapon known as an influencer, which causes indescribable pain, and prison labor is even harsher and more deadly. Here, we are introduced to Staxxx and Thurwar, two women who have managed to survive on the circuit, Thurwar just weeks from being the first woman to win her freedom. As we accompany the two women through their season, we also dip into the lives of fans, activists protesting the "sport," and other contestants.

I found this book both hard to read and difficult to set aside. Adjei-Brenyah's writing isn't showy or beautiful, but it forces the reader into being interested, into caring for people who have done bad things, but who nonetheless do not deserve what is inflicted on them. This is an obvious indictment of our current prison industry, complete with footnotes directly relating the novel to real events and facts. While the story he's telling is shocking, it's also far too believable. ( )
2 rösta RidgewayGirl | Mar 5, 2024 |
In the not-distant future, prison inmates are given the option to fight to the death, gladiator-style, for the slim chance of winning their freedom, while their lives and battles are broadcast to a bloodthirsty fan base.

This is a powerfully told story - dark, challenging, maddening - because it's so damn close to the reality of the American prison-for-profit system now, and the dehumanization of both convicts and of "action sports" athletes (blood sports, whether the NFL or MMA or UFC or even the legions of young men who think that Fight Club was an invitation into tests of manhood.

The story is multiple-POV, multiple-voice, and you hear from athletes, their family members, "corrections" officers, abolitionists, pain researchers, board members of the sports broadcast company, etc. And these stories interweave, in sometimes surprising ways.

The pace is fast, the characters are multidimensional.

The print and audio books are also littered with footnotes referencing the current American penal system, both prison and legal, and those footnotes support the narrative as well as the education of the reader.

I've been describing the book this way: Powerful speculative fiction, incredibly well told story, and pairs well with [author:Michelle Alexander|3051490]'s masterpiece [book:The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness|6792458], with a broader target audience because it's just a great story.. that will move and educate you.

EVERYBODY should read this, whether fans of fiction, nonfiction, storytelling, excellent audio narration, everybody.

I read it as an audiobook. It's very well voiced by multiple voice actors, with energy and character dripping throughout. ( )
1 rösta patl | Feb 29, 2024 |
Thanks for the ARC netgalley!

This was really well written! Lyrical and smart, the way it flowed was a little hard to grab on to at first but it smoothed out as the characters were fleshed out. I want to read it again now that I have a grasp on the writing style. I had a hard time following the characters as well... Maybe a second reading will help with this too
  eboods | Feb 28, 2024 |
So this book was a risk for this particular reader. I never wanted to gravitate towards the Hunger Games -- admittedly, I know little about it in avoiding it, other than it looks like torture for children. Somehow I didn't avoid this book the same way, but I thought even before reading it, I assumed there was more of a point to it. Apologizes to the Hunger Games, but I think that there is. The author could have easily slid into dramatic over-the-top-ness, because all of this here is ripe for that, but I don't think it ever goes there. The miserable world building is thorough. Not to mention some lovely sentences from the minds of a handful of characters that are in tough-as-hell situations. I liked that the characters were distinct, with their own voices. Sometimes a writer goes polyphonic but most of the characters have the same style of thought. That was not the case here. I like that the focus was not on the crimes. I also think that this could be "satire" on many things... maybe I'm grasping at straws or maybe there are plenty of things crap about the world that can be satire. Overall, I think the book was a tad too long to get to the inevitable conclusion. But with so many different voices, I would have liked a bit more from some of them. I'm glad I read this, even through its misery. But there is more there than just the misery.
*Book #145/340 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books ( )
1 rösta booklove2 | Feb 15, 2024 |
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"The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences. Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a "new and necessary American voice" (Tommy Orange, New York Times Book Review)"--

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