Chain Gang All Stars- A Novel by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
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Web ID: 16686041A Vicious Critique of the American Prison Complex
Wow. Completely blown away by this. There’s not a single wasted chapter or word. Adjei-Brenyah has here a vicious critique of the American prison industrial complex, corporate greed, Americans propensity for glorifying violence, reality television, and racism. He manages to craft each character into something whole and interesting, even people you wouldn’t think of like the scientist who inadvertently created the Influencer technology, or the married couple of fans with the wife being drawn into the violent world of Chain Gang. It’s these details that build the foundation for the main drama of the protagonists. I can’t recommend this highly enough.
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Gruesome Dystopian
Although extremely gruesome, this dystopian book really makes you think. It’s The Hunger Games meets The Gladiator meets Squid Game. In a world much like we have today, prisoners with 25 years or more sentences or on death row are offered the chance to become gladiators where they have to kill each other about once a month in fight to the death matches. If they survive for 3 years they are freed, so many sign up because it has to be better than prison and they’re going to die anyway. There’s low-freed (they die) and high-freed (they earn their freedom). The entire event is broadcast live, and their down times can be viewed by the public as a reality show. The gladiators are pretty much being streamed live their entire day. The story centers around Thurwar and Staxxx who are on the same chain of about 8 gladiators (they live together, train together, and sometimes fight together in melees, but never are forced to fight another member of their chain). Thurwar and Staxxx are both the best of the best and they love each other. Thurwar is the leader of her chain and she is a few weeks away from being freed. The story is told by different POV’s of the individual fighters, the executives running the show, and audience members, with footnotes of the history of this world and/or our world’s real history and facts. The entire book is very eye-opening about our prison system. I’m still trying to to reconcile that ending and I think this story will be with me for a while!
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Disappointed
Unfortunately, for me, this book did not live up to the hype at all. The premise was an intriguing one but the execution fell flat for me. There were too many characters, which made it hard to care about most of them, and sometimes you weren’t sure who was who in a chapter until you were partway through it. There were occasional footnotes, which took you out of the narrative flow, an odd feature for a book of fiction. I nearly DNF’d it at about 50%, but then decided to speed through/skim a bit to get to the end. (And the ending was quite unsatisfying.) The theme of how awful and racist the penal system is, was hammered home early on, and it just felt repetitive after a while. Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
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DNF...sadly
I rarely DNF a book but I’ve officially set aside Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and most likely won’t be picking it back up. From a personal preference, the book exhausted me. It’s filled with so much rage and anger and felt like I was being screamed at from the very first page. That’s fine, but not what I had expected nor personally wanted to be reading. I understand this is a satire and the point is exaggeration to further a point and force readers to ask the hard questions, but it was too extreme for me on a lot of levels. From a non-personal perspective and simply as a reviewer, I struggled with the overwhelming amount of characters. The plot wasn’t progressing and I felt like we were supposed to be appalled by CAPE and yet readers are essentially as bad as anyone watching because we want to see what happens to these characters we are now invested in. Maybe that was the point. There were a lot of distractions and I genuinely felt lost from chapter to chapter. It was a combination of a lot of things causing me to set it aside and I wanted to like this book, am invested in the message it’s conveying but the style and content of writing didn’t work for getting that message across to me personally.
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Read it first!
CHAIN GANG ALL-STARS Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Reading this book turned my reading sessions into LIVE events. I’d grab a snack, get something cool to drink and find a cozy spot, turn on the audiobook, and see who was doing what. THIS IS A MOVIE! I’m not saying they should turn this into a movie, I’m saying they will turn this into a movie. Read it first! CHAIN GANG ALL-STARS stars STAXXX and Thurwar. Actually, it has a whole cast of characters but STAXXX and Thurwar reign supreme. The CHAIN GANG ALL-STARS are a chain gang serving time in one of America's deadliest and most exploited prisons. The prisons are made to compete like gladiators in a chance to win their freedom. But that is really an oversimplification of what the book is. The book in its purest light is about the legal system. Who is in charge, who is inside, whom it helps, and whom it doesn’t, and it talks about the legal system's intended purpose. It’s also about two prisoners on a convergent path. The journeys they took to get where they were and the eventual path they will find themselves on. The reading experience is multidimensional in a couple of different ways. There is an exciting and tense story and woven throughout are highlights of why the story matters. It feels like no matter what path you take or which side of the coin you land you’ll end up at a place of better understanding. The audiobook is done by a magnificent cast of narrators. Including Shayna Small, Aaron Goodson, Michael Crouch, and Lee Osorio. This lent to the cinematic quality of the audiobook. I really enjoyed their performances. I did feel it was a bit long and sometimes the heaviness of the message was a lot to take in. It elicits emotions of a dual nature. In one aspect I was saddened and angered and in the other, I was raptured by the story and excited to see how it played out. That conflict felt purposeful and effective. So much to think about. So much to discuss. Powerful and important, it’s definitely worth your time and worth the read. Thanks to Penguin Random House Audio and LibroFM for the advanced copies and the opportunity to provide feedback! CHAIN GANG ALL-STARS...⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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I can’t wait for the awards
Highly provocative, insanely violent yet touching, author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah has victory over an impossible feat, he has written a fresh story topping any other book I’ve read this year. I thought I could not be shocked at new themes and storylines after all my years of reading, but this book electrified me. Our prison system is exploited in ways we don’t readily think of. Intelligent thinkers will appreciate this story, as it will bring our prison system atrocities to light in a new way. This story also brought a well-rounded view to everyone involved, and still managed to be soft, emotional and heartfelt. I dare anyone to read the first chapter and not be hooked! This will be highly recommended in my book outreach efforts. I can’t wait for the awards that are to come for Chain Gang All Stars. I will absolutely nominate this for Library Reads and be purchasing for our patrons.
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Welcome to the Chang Gang
This review is from an ARC. Working on the Chain Gang has been redefined. The penal system has gone through a revamp. Crime and criminals are being handled a little differently. Welcome to the Chain Gang All-Stars, where your freedom can be guaranteed based on your will to survive. This novel gave a look from within at the prison system and how it's more geared to financial compensation as opposed to the rehabilitation of the inmates. The cast of characters pull you in from the first page. Chain Gang All Stars is a gripping story that leaves you wondering who really is the villain.
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