I picked up Chain-Gang All-Stars because I needed a book with footnotes. That’s the sort of delightfully specific reading challenge prompt that usually leads me down unexpected paths. What I didn’t expect was to find one of the most devastating, thoughtful, and deeply human novels I’ve read in years.
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah imagines a near-future America where incarcerated people fight to the death for their freedom before cheering crowds. The premise sounds extreme until the footnotes begin. Then the distance between fiction and reality starts to collapse.
This isn’t an easy read. It’s violent, heartbreaking, and relentlessly challenging. But it is also full of love, humanity, and questions that linger long after the final page.
*Spoilers will be hidden and labelled so you can choose to read or skip.
Hype Meter
Goodreads: 4.10 | StoryGraph: 4.32
Under-hyped. Yes, it was that good.
Cover Crit
The violence of the cover of Chain-Gang All-Stars immediately caught my eye. The scythe, the flames, the shattering and distressed letters all spoke to rage and pain. This is juxtaposed with a rather static layout – upright position of the weapon, stacked and evenly spaced words- which evokes a sense of structure at odds with the violent elements.
Color Story
The palette of Chain-Gang All-Stars is mostly warm tones of yellow, orange, and burgundy with bold black elements. The sky blue makes these other tones pop. The palette suggests African or Black American culture to a degree.
Typography Notes
The type used for the title “Chain-Gang All-Stars” uses variable width to suggest that not all links on the chain are the same. This adds variation and movement without compromising the overall stacked structure. The words are balanced—the forms blocky and structural without lacking personality. The formatting of the words “all-stars” is vaguely athletic in nature.
Genre Signals
The genre is not abundantly clear from the cover of Chain-Gang All-Stars, which generally indicates a literary fiction read. Again, the palette suggests this would be Black literary fiction, which is confirmed by the book’s listing. The imagery suggests that it would be an action or dystopian novel.
Hidden Details
Not exactly hidden, the scythe is a weapon that is used by one of the primary Links in the A-Hamm Chain-Gang.
Mood Check
The mood suggested by the imagery is dark and challenging despite the bright, bold colors.
Beyond the Dust Jacket
The ebook for Chain-Gang All-Stars is well-formatted. The footnotes open when clicked, and there are navigation options to read some at the bottom of the page or to see the full footnote. There are then links to return to the page you originated on.
The chapters are titled, but the point of view for the chapter is not indicated; you have to understand who is narrating based on their voice and the story’s context.
There are no extraneous visual elements, no distractions.
I think, given the challenging nature of the story, that this would have benefited from a book club questions guide. It would certainly spark some debate!
Did the design affect whether I bought the book?
No, I had found this book when I was searching for books that might fulfill the prompt to read a book with footnotes or endnotes. There aren’t a ton of those in the fiction space, so I was reading the descriptions on everything. The description is what ultimately sold me on Chain-Gang All-Stars.
Lines I Highlighted
They were all humans, and yet they had completely different ideas about what humanity meant.
Story Snapshot
In Short
In a privatized prison system, gladiator-style fighters Loretta Thurwar and Hurricane Staxxx compete in death matches for their freedom, while confronting systemic racism and corporate exploitation.
From the Publisher
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE
“This book is so good. Brutal subject matter, beautiful writing. This one is from the heart.” —Stephen King
A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Elle, Esquire, Chicago Tribune, Lit Hub, Kirkus Reviews
“Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Adjei-Brenyah’s book presents a dystopian vision so…illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of doing.” —The Washington Post
She felt their eyes, all those executioners…
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death matches before packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, Thurwar considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games. But CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo, and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.
Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors, to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review).
Lines I Highlighted
She forced love into this loveless space, made it the subject of her life. She showed them that she, the Hurricane, was capable of great love, and that if they’d look they’d see they were too. And maybe someday they would understand what they’d enabled, what they’d created.
Characters I Followed Into Battle
Loretta Thurwar is the point of view that acts as the touchstone for the story. We begin and end with her. She is a complicated individual with qualities and faults that make you love her, but also understand why she sometimes hates herself.
The supporting cast of Chain-Gang All-Stars varies wildly in lived experience and point of view. These contribute to the richness of the story. No one is above reproach (even the innocents carry ugly feelings), and no one is cast as purely evil (even the nazis display affection for each other).
Lines I Highlighted
She hated what she was, but she loved what she could do.
Writing Style Notes
Each POV character in Chain-Gang All-Stars has a unique personal voice. This shines through every aspect of the chapter, beyond just dialogue. The word choice, cadence, vernacular, accent, and affectations breathe life into the characters. The pov isn’t usually announced, so these cues are essential.
The use of footnotes takes the impact of the writing to the next level! Could you read the book without the notes? surely. However, to truly feel the meaning, to connect the story to our loved experience, these notes are essential. What’s in the notes? sometimes back-story, but more often it’s real-life statistics or bits of legal or penal code that allow the atrocities in the book to take place. They underscore how close this dystopia is to our lived experience.
The broad use of pov swaps lets the reader take in the state of the world from differing perspectives. the autborndoesnt tell you what to think, but presents you with enough evidence to let you grapple with where you’d stand, what line you’d draw.
Lines I Highlighted
It was hard to forget the things that hurt you. You didn’t often forget the shape of your cage.
Themes Living Rent-Free In My Head
- Where life is precious, life is precious.
- Who decides what justice looks like?
- Why is it so easy to cast someone as “other” and demote them to less than? To shape violence as justice?
- The power of names. Given names. Stage names. Named weapons (or wigs).
Lines I Highlighted
“Be careful who you give your name to, girl. You don’t know how they gonna use it.” Staxxx had been taught that when someone said your name, what they said next had energy. What was said about you had power.
What Landed For Me
What Worked:
- the voices
- the footnotes
- the relationships
- the humanity
What Didn’t Fully Click:
No notes. Chain-Gang All Stars delivers.
Overall:
This is truly excellent. Devastating. But excellent.
Lines I Highlighted
Where life is precious, life is precious, and it dawned on the crowd, rapt and ready though they were for the doubles BattleGround match of the year, that life might not be precious here.
Intentional Reading Reflection
When I drew this week’s prompt, I had a few books that I knew would fit the bill. Ultimately, I leaned toward Chain-Gang All-Stars because it’s Pride month, and I knew there was LGBTQ+ representation, and I wasn’t sure the other books in the queue did.
I’d also come off a light-hearted read and felt I had the capacity for something grittier. Grit was extra gritty, my friends. Chain Gang was challenging, it was harsh, it was heart-wrenching, but it was also beautiful and hopeful in a dark way. That is a story that I’ll be carrying with me, no doubt.
Lines I Highlighted
It was all death, slow or fast. Painful or sudden. Nothing more. The culture of Chain-Gang was death.
Cover Promise Rating
Did the cover make promises the story actually kept?
Yes! The Chain-Gang All-Stars did feature Black culture (and oppression of the Black culture), but also systemic violence, which was alluded to in the cover design. I actually liked the book more than the cover led me to believe I would.
Lines I Highlighted
On this one thing you don’t negotiate. You love through all the people you’ve been and hope you have a chance at being better.
Final Verdict
Read if you like:
- Unique points of view
- Deeply human characters
- Plausible dystopian near-futures
- Social critiques
- Gladiator or Deathmatch style action
Skip if you dislike:
- Challenging stories that make you think
- Violence, Torture
- Or if you have sensitivity to certain triggers
Lines I Highlighted
Everybody got a name: a story of truths and lies.
Reading Debris
I read Chain-Gang All-Stars to fulfill the Playing Card Reading Challenge prompt: Read a book with footnotes or endnotes. It could also fulfill: Read a book with found family. Read a book with LGBTQ+ representation.
Your Turn
Do you read books that challenge you? What is the most challenging book you think everyone should read?
Buy This Book
May your life be as full as your bookshelf and as long as your TBR list.
Happy Reading!
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“Hallucinations” lined, 120-page, paperback journal.
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