Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

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

127 reviews

ellen_is_reading's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book is stunning.

Through the lense of a high-action murder game show this book delivers a sharp criticism of the American penal system. By using such an extreme framing point, we are shown all of the ways that the penal system has failed, continues to fail, and could fail in the future. 

Incredibly human characters which force you to question your own complicity and limits of what kinds of punishment can be tolerated. 

Rooted in real statistics and structures of the modern justice system,  this story highlights racial disparities, harsh punishment practices, and all the ways that prisoners are seen as less-than and allowed to be harmed for it. 

I will be thinking about this book and it's message for a very long time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

Minor: Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, and Sexual content

ms_kristie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Deep reflection of prison industrial complex, entertainment and advocacy and what it might look like in the near future. Dystopian 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Lesbophobia, and Classism

aculairam's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Beautifully written. Switches perspectives often. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, and Forced institutionalization

leannanecdote's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

briophyta's review against another edition

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This story is a call out of so many current issues. The pacing is a bit difficult, but worth it for me to follow. Something feels slightly disjointed and difficult to follow at times because of perspective changes and how many characters come and go + flashbacks to many different times and places. The audiobook cast does a really good job. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

tamarant4's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.0

...the massive violence of the state was “justice,” was “law and order,” and resistance to perpetual violence was an act of terror. It would have been funny if there weren’t so much blood everywhere. [loc. 2540]

'Chain-Gang All-Stars Battleground' is the top-rated show on CAPE, the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment channel. Prisoners facing a death penalty or incarceration over a certain amount of time can volunteer to become a Link, a part of a Chain. Individuals on one Chain engage in mortal combat with opponents from another Chain. If a Link survives for three years, they win their freedom. The average life expectancy is three months.

The novel's multitude of viewpoint characters include Links Loretta Thurwar and Hurricane Staxxx, lovers and stars of the Angola-Hammond Chain; Hendrix Young, one-armed spear-wielder; and Simon J Clark, utterly broken by torture and nicknamed the Unkillable. (All were imprisoned for murder, from violent rape and murder to self-defence. And of course have committed many more murders since, as part of the show.) There are also other voices: fans, protesters, an announcer, a scientist... These are interesting for their angles on the show, the cultural context, the prejudices of race and class (the Links are mostly non-white) and the creeping complicity of it.

Though it's the future, with new and exciting technology utilised to cause pain and record violence, Adjei-Brenyah's footnotes snag our frame of reference back to the present day, with stats about race, innocence and violence in the US carceral system. This is more a pitch-black satire than it is science fiction: and it is a love story that finishes on an irredeemably tragic note.

Read for lockdown book club. It took me a while, because this is a very violent book, in terms of physical and social violence. I think it is a timely and important novel, with powerful prose and complex characters, tackling important issues. The fact that I didn't enjoy reading it is incidental.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Gore, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

shaynicole's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Self harm, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

emfass's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I'm reviewing this months after the fact and I still don't know how to talk about this book. I was gutted and stunned and so affected by this writing and these characters and the world that Adjei-Brenyah created, which feels like it could be just a few months away. Brilliantly presenting ideas of abolition and social justice through a narrative, fictional story. I was blown away.

It took me a while to drop in to the kaleidoscope format of storytelling, but I looooooved it. How does this world affect all these different people who have different relationships to the Chain Gang All-Stars machine. 

The narrators did a phenomenal job: Shayna Small (main narrator), Aaron Goodson (Hendrix Young), Michael Crouch (Simon J. Craft), Lee Osorio (Gunny Puddles)

This is on my list of best books I've ever read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual assault, Grief, and Lesbophobia

gardner98's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book is similar hunger games, as this centers a game where criminals are forced to fight to the death for their freedom. The book is a social commentary on mass incarceration and the prison industrial conflict. 
TW: A lot of violence. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gore, Racism, Rape, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

laestaci's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

A tragedy and a compelling human story. Insights to the prison system. Too real projections about how capitalism and prisons and the military industrial complex can easily join forces to charge us the pleasure of watching people kill each other. That said, was hopeful for something else in the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Confinement, Racial slurs, Self harm, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail