This book y’all. This. Book. THIS. BOOK.
This one is in my top 5 for the year, easy; it’s an early contender for #1. I knew going into it that it was going to be a bumpy ride, having been warned by a few reader friends that it was intense, hard-to-read, and “the ending left me stunned, mouth opened, for five whole minutes.” And still, I was not prepared for Adjei-Brenyah’s literal and metaphorical jaw-dropping book. A few chapters in I asked said friends, “Ummm. So this book is going to mess me up?” And the answer was an unequivocal “Yup.”
In a slightly future world, “hard action sports” is broadcast and loved across the nation. In this popular pastime, people volunteer to battle each other to the death for the entertainment of the masses. But the volunteers are criminals, convicted murderers who have opted into this killing ring, with the possibility of freedom. If they survive for three years, they will be set free. The longer they survive, the more “blood points” they win and can spend on things such as better weapons, and better accommodations. They even earn sponsorships. Televised both in and out of the ring, their lives are no longer their own.
Though the premise will sound familiar with a side-eye to the Hunger Games, the execution is anything but. The thing about this book that is gutting is that this novel is peppered throughout with footnotes. As this book is fictional, many of the footnotes just give us details on the characters in the story, as you might expect. But what I didn’t expect was that Adjei-Brenyah includes footnotes with real facts and statistics about incarcerations in the United States, which creates a sort of emotional whiplash as you read that forces you to face the stark reality of the American judicial system.
Also, unlike Hunger Games which centered mostly on one character’s journey, the POV of this one is all over the place, which creates more whiplash. Though you are following the journey of one prisoner who is close to being freed, you see inside the minds and experiences of so many characters in this world, many of the other prisoners on the different “chains,” the billionaire board members responsible for this popular sport, the protestors who want to put an end to it, the riveted fans, and even the prison guards.
This book is stunning and I remain stunned. It was a very hard read but I’m glad I read it. And I’m glad for the hard truths I’ve learned, some of which I’ll highlight here. For example, did you know that Albert Woodfox was incarcerated for 43 years in Angola prison. He and another inmate were convicted of killing a prison guard, for which they were later exonerated, which lead to him being released in 2016. Yup. Like that just happen. Also, because I’m from Louisiana I’m pretty familiar with Angola (the nickname for Louisiana State Penitentiary) which is on the site of the former Angola Plantation, at which they still hold the yearly Angole Priosn Rodeo. Yup.
I read up a bit on it, and came upon some real cognitive dissonance on Reddit, in a thread about said rodeo, where one person said they didn’t see how this was allowed, and shouldn’t such a thing be classified as “cruel and unusual punishment” and one commentary responded “Voluntary is voluntary. They sign up for it.” Which is exactly the words that the board used to justify the sport in the book. Yup.
And then, the thing I’m still scratching my head about, is that as I read this book that is about glorifying violence and dehumanizing people, has Adjei-Brenyah has also made the reader complicit, part of the problem. In consuming this as my own “entertainment” what does that say about me?
Sooooo yeah. If you need me I’ll probably still be here, in my yellow chair, thinking about this book.