 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book set in the future.
Chain-Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah This is a dark satire, sort of a cross between The Hunger Games and the prison series Oz. It's the near future, and the popular entertainment craze is prisoners fighting in gladiator matches to the death. The fighters are "volunteers," with the promise of freedom dangled in front of them if they can survive 3 years. We see a lot of characters' points of view, including spectators, family members, and smarmy businessmen who plot to profit off the deaths. But mostly we see through the eyes of the prisoners, particularly a pair of lovers, Loretta Thurman and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker. We're warned early on that the producers think it would be an awesome spectacle to make them fight each other. There are so many surreal satirical touches: the WWE-style nicknames. The corporate sponsorships. The reality shows portraying the prisoners between death matches. And the euphemisms! Being killed in the ring is being "low freed." The guards' torture device is called "the Influencer." Killing for entertainment is a "hard action sport." The author is a prison abolitionist, who sprinkles facts and figures about the US prison system throughout the book.
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