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

1.75

This was a slog.  Interesting premise but it was a lot of work to get through it for me.  And the footnotes!  My least favorite writing device.  I was briefly intrigued, as it seemed an interesting technique to have this fictional  distopian world in the main text and these footnotes of facts that fit that world but are real.  But then the footnotes were used in other ways and I find footnotes irritating and lazy; if it’s important, say it in the text and if it’s not important have the discipline to edit it out.  
Reads a lot like one of those business book “novels”, like Who Moved My Cheese or The Unicorn Project.  It felt a like those which are non-fiction thinly covered by a fictional story to make the points in an “entertaining” way.  I finished because it was a book club read but would have abandoned otherwise.

Unsure how feel about the ending as well.  I get that belief that Thurwar would fight for something better.  But I wanted Thurwar and Staxxx to deny them the entertainment of their fight (probably by suicide before the match since refusal to fight on the ground would have led to Influencing).    And I’m skeptical Thurwar would actually be freed, that they wouldn’t just change the rules again.