Chain-Gang All-Stars - Review
Link to the author's (N. K. Adjei-Brenyah) personal website
Genre: Sci-Fi Fiction
Publication Type: Book
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (32)
- Length (5 / 10)
Link to Goodreads
Blurb: 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.
Review: This book terrified me, and as so many characters in the book, I couldn't look away. The influencer is a thing of nightmares. The book presents a distant harrowing future, with footnotes at the end of each chapter reminding you that reality is closer to this fictional world than one would hope.
The characters are so incredibly well portrayed in this book, and that includes the large cast of side characters. Their emotions, inner thoughts, interactions, and dialogue was just well written. I loved how the many short perspectives converged to the main story, and think the perspectives added a lot of depth. My heart goes out to Loretta Thurwar.