Review by rinku - Chain-Gang All-Stars

rinku 's review for:

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

3.0

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a Hunger Games-esque literary novel. It’s a very interesting read with various characters and interesting writing styles for all of them but it was in parts too confusing for me.

Two of the characters that are mainly in the focus are Staxxx and Thurwar, two women in the prison system that take part in Chain-Gang All-Stars, a gladiator game of life and death. We see how these two and other characters deal with this system, but also some protestors against it. A big portion of the book is thus social commentary with also more subtle parts. It critiques the violence in the American society or the way immigrants are treated. The biggest topic is the prison system and the question if criminals deserve love as well. Abolition is thematized in an easy to understand way which was nice.

Besides this, the plot was quite predictable. It was obvious that

the two would be forced to fight each other in the end, but the final fight was still so stressful. All characters in the end coming together was predictable as well

but I still think this was done in a clever way. Besides this, I struggled a bit with the setting. It was a bit hard to imagine some of the places, and it also doesn’t really become clear when the story takes place. We furthermore don’t see too much of how life has changed in comparison to our time.

Like I’ve said, this book has many different POVs and narration styles, and we see our main characters Staxxx and Thurwar through the eyes of many different characters. I really like them as a couple, and I also appreciated that we have a trans character. Also, Craft’s creepiness is depicted so well it’s unsettling. Sometimes though, all the characters were a bit confusing, and I mixed them up. There are also different timelines – I think – which was confusing as well.

Still, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a novel worth reading in my opinion. It’s dark, critiques the prison system well, and has an interesting writing style.

Content Warnings