A review by sahanac
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

oh...wow. going to be thinking about this one every time i talk about prison abolition or the ways that systemic injustices play out in the american media (so...constantly lol). the metaphors here were never heavy handed, never too hard to parse, but always just sensitive enough to leave me with so much to contemplate and chew on. the fact that the main characters that we were meant to love and have sympathy for were all violent offenders was a really excellent touch in the narrative around prison abolition - it is not just for the people that the justice system *fails* that we want abolition, but for the people who are and have been genuinely bad. it's about changing the whole system. and the concept of high and low freed, the way that so many of the almost-high freed Links chose death felt like a devastating commentary on the way our system is set up for recidivism. not an "enjoyable" read, but a tragic, hard, incredibly powerful, rewarding one.