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gustus's review against another edition
4.0
It's a short story, so the whole thing has a very fast pace. Nevertheless, I really like the story. I mean who could say no to a story of women fighting in arena, trying to save up money to escape their slavery :3 If it was longer, it would have been amazing
hhushaw's review against another edition
3.0
An honest review thanks to NetGalley. This was an interesting novella, the concept and the storyline kept me intrigued as I learned more about their world. It was a nice quick read, but I do not think I will be re-reading it again.
melaniebopp's review
2.0
This story is a romance between two female gladiators in a sort of alternate reality. Cherry was a dancer but has asked Berlin to teach her how to fight - as a gladiator, she has a better chance of buying her way out. As the two women spend time together, they grow closer, are definitely attracted to each other, The world the author has built is interesting, with people being held as markers for debt: not quite slavery, but they are definitely not free. I love good world-building, and while this was fairly lightly done, it was believable.
The main reason this didn't hit all the marks for me was I simply didn't connect with the two main characters. Berlin is hard, and I never really felt like we saw behind that. there was no moment where we got to see who she is beyond the fighter. We get to read about her background, but it's just data, there's no real connection there. Cherry is determined and driven, but I never really felt connected with her either. I want to feel emotional for the characters I read about, and this just didn't do it for me.
Something else that bothered me was the sexual relationship between Cherry and Berlin, specifically how it's described in the beginning of the story. As Berlin is supposed to be training Cherry (which is basically "I'm going to attack you, fight me off" without any sort of direction), there is groping and kissing, and it kinda comes out of nowhere. It's treated as more a power play than consensual sex, which is worrisome. It's not okay to train with someone and just kiss them or slap their ass without prior consent. Who knows, maybe it exists off the page...
It's a good story underneath, but its length is definitely to its detriment. I would have loved seeing this as a full-length novel instead of a novella.
The main reason this didn't hit all the marks for me was I simply didn't connect with the two main characters. Berlin is hard, and I never really felt like we saw behind that. there was no moment where we got to see who she is beyond the fighter. We get to read about her background, but it's just data, there's no real connection there. Cherry is determined and driven, but I never really felt connected with her either. I want to feel emotional for the characters I read about, and this just didn't do it for me.
Something else that bothered me was the sexual relationship between Cherry and Berlin, specifically how it's described in the beginning of the story. As Berlin is supposed to be training Cherry (which is basically "I'm going to attack you, fight me off" without any sort of direction), there is groping and kissing, and it kinda comes out of nowhere. It's treated as more a power play than consensual sex, which is worrisome. It's not okay to train with someone and just kiss them or slap their ass without prior consent. Who knows, maybe it exists off the page...
It's a good story underneath, but its length is definitely to its detriment. I would have loved seeing this as a full-length novel instead of a novella.
bluejayreads's review against another edition
1.0
I was really excited about this book. It even made my Top 5 Want to Reads for this year. I guess the joke's on me for getting so excited about the concept and not reading the reviews. This is the most disappointing book I've read this year.
So you know how based on the back cover, it seems like a lot of the story is going to be about Cherry convincing Berlin to teach her to fight? Yeah, Berlin agrees to train her on page 2. Right after their first kiss. Berlin gives Cherry an aggressive kiss after tackling her as a "show of dominance."
Which leads me to my next problem with this book - Cherry and Berlin are both overly sexualized. At once point, Cherry says "I want people to see me as more than tits and ass," and yet the author describes both girls mostly in terms of tits, ass, and how horny they make each other. There's a lot of nudity. There's a lot of random nipple sucking. There's a lot of sexual situations that don't fit the fact that these girls hardly know each other. And most of it reads like amateur erotica.
I don't want to be That Feminist(TM), but this novella reads like it is by and for the male gaze. Cherry and Berlin are described in terms of sex appeal, their relationship develops through mutual horniness, and the level of physical intimacy they have as strangers is straight out of a random encounters erotica story. If there had been actual on-page sex when the girls had sex, I would call this amateur erotica with a veneer of gladiators slapped on top.
The pacing was also very bad. It moved much too fast and didn't focus enough on anything to give either of the girls real emotions. The conflicts between Berlin and Cherry feel contrived and both girls get over them within a few paragraphs with no emotional growth shown, and you get no sense of the world (other than this is some sort of dystopian society where people or their family members are sold to work in The Zone if they can't pay their debts).
A short list of other problems that I want to mention but not spend an entire paragraph on:
-Both girls act like sex work is awful/shameful/makes you less of a person.
-Two unnecessary sexual assault scenes.
-It's not really clear how one actually makes money off the fights. Maybe betting on them?
-It's mentioned offhandedly that the fights are mostly about the sex appeal - which is just, what???
-The line "You're going to be turned on when you're fighting."
This could have easily been expanded into a novel - and I think with time to flesh out the world and the characters of Cherry and Berlin, this could have been at least good. Berlin has an interesting past, and Cherry at least has some family history that could have been explored. The world could have been interesting. And I still love stories about fighting in arenas for money. I'm mostly upset about this novella because it could have been good, and I wanted it to be - it just wasn't.
So you know how based on the back cover, it seems like a lot of the story is going to be about Cherry convincing Berlin to teach her to fight? Yeah, Berlin agrees to train her on page 2. Right after their first kiss. Berlin gives Cherry an aggressive kiss after tackling her as a "show of dominance."
Which leads me to my next problem with this book - Cherry and Berlin are both overly sexualized. At once point, Cherry says "I want people to see me as more than tits and ass," and yet the author describes both girls mostly in terms of tits, ass, and how horny they make each other. There's a lot of nudity. There's a lot of random nipple sucking. There's a lot of sexual situations that don't fit the fact that these girls hardly know each other. And most of it reads like amateur erotica.
I don't want to be That Feminist(TM), but this novella reads like it is by and for the male gaze. Cherry and Berlin are described in terms of sex appeal, their relationship develops through mutual horniness, and the level of physical intimacy they have as strangers is straight out of a random encounters erotica story. If there had been actual on-page sex when the girls had sex, I would call this amateur erotica with a veneer of gladiators slapped on top.
The pacing was also very bad. It moved much too fast and didn't focus enough on anything to give either of the girls real emotions. The conflicts between Berlin and Cherry feel contrived and both girls get over them within a few paragraphs with no emotional growth shown, and you get no sense of the world (other than this is some sort of dystopian society where people or their family members are sold to work in The Zone if they can't pay their debts).
A short list of other problems that I want to mention but not spend an entire paragraph on:
-Both girls act like sex work is awful/shameful/makes you less of a person.
-Two unnecessary sexual assault scenes.
-It's not really clear how one actually makes money off the fights. Maybe betting on them?
-It's mentioned offhandedly that the fights are mostly about the sex appeal - which is just, what???
-The line "You're going to be turned on when you're fighting."
This could have easily been expanded into a novel - and I think with time to flesh out the world and the characters of Cherry and Berlin, this could have been at least good. Berlin has an interesting past, and Cherry at least has some family history that could have been explored. The world could have been interesting. And I still love stories about fighting in arenas for money. I'm mostly upset about this novella because it could have been good, and I wanted it to be - it just wasn't.
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