Name: Chain-Gang All-Stars
Rating: 4.148245614035088 (57 reviews)
ISBN: 9781529903829

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Enter a world where, watched by millions, prisoners fight like gladiators for the ultimate prize: their freedom. Perfect for fans of The Handmaid's Tale, Squid Game and Watchmen 'Electrifying' GEORGE SAUNDERS 'Awe-inspiring' JESSAMINE CHAN 'A revelation!' TOMMY ORANGE Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars, the popular and highly controversial programme inside America's prison system. In packed arenas, watched by millions of live-stream viewers, prisoners compete as gladiators for the ultimate prize: their freedom. Fan favourites Loretta Thurwar and Hamara 'Hurricane Staxxx' Stacker are teammates and lovers. Thurwar is nearing the end of her time on the circuit, free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares for her final encounters, as protestors gather at the gates, and as the programme's corporate owners stack the odds against her - will the price be simply too high? '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 **A MOST ANTICIPATED TITLE OF 2023 from The Independent, Elle, The Millions, Salon, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Huffington Post, Oprah Daily, The Week, Book Riot, Lit-Reactor, Goodreads, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus AND MANY MORE**

Chain-Gang All-Stars

Lindsay

I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this.

He was killed by a lot of things. He was offered a hole instead of help. So this was the last of many deaths for him.

Prisons haven’t deterred the harm they’re meant to deter. They’re a failed experiment.

“I mean that all those issues that you’re talking about are symptoms of our current system. Rampant poverty, a lack of resources for people suffering from addiction and mental health issues— those are difficult problems, but ones that can be addressed. But they aren’t. Because criminalization dehumanizes individuals and implicates them rather than a society that abandons them in times of need.”

“We aren’t asking for an erasure. We aren’t trying to forget the pain of victims. For us, abolition is a positive process. It means creating new infrastructure, new ways of thinking about reducing harm. That’s what we’re saying. I’m not saying there isn’t something to be afraid of. We’re saying the thing we fear is already here, so it’s wrong not to try to do better. And I can’t say that any one of us has the perfect answer of what to do, but we might be able to figure something out if we consider it together.”

and the people wondered if this feeling was salvation.

The thing he did not like was happening: He was seeing what he was.

Sabrina D. 

It was all death, slow or fast. Painful or sudden. Nothing more. The culture of Chain-Gang was death. 

kylie harrison

A starving man knows the price of food best. A glutton spills his portion to the floor. 

Billie Fogarty

Does disappearing one person from the earth clean it some? I seen men I knew were a danger to the world and they too deserve better than this. A shame for me to hope for better, but I know it's better that can be done. Ain't no magic potions for these bleeding human hearts. Ain't no building full of hurt gonna save the masses.

I thought about how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this. 

A home is an origin story. A home is a thing to carry. A home is a wild field of energy that floods floods floods. Call me. Call me home.

karina

There is a space in time when violence tears through from imagined to physical — and if that physical is met with more physical, then the violence can become both the vehicle and the driver for all that comes after, and what has escaped can be incredibly difficult to contain. 

Nate

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.

The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of 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 for 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, she 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).

A Novel

A heavy read but pulls you all the way through. 

kait

one of the best to ever do this genre imo

Emily

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a brutal, propulsive, and surprisingly tender dystopian novel that turns mass incarceration into a televised gladiator sport, then asks why we ever accepted cruelty as usual in the first place. It is violent and often brutal to read, but it is also profoundly human, full of love, remorse, and the stubborn hope that systems, even monstrous ones, can change.

In an alternate near-future America, people facing execution or decades-long sentences can “volunteer” for CAPE—Criminal Action Penal Entertainment—a reality TV bloodsport where incarcerated fighters, or “Links,” kill each other on live television for the chance at eventual freedom. The novel follows Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, two Black women, teammates and lovers, who have become superstars in this system even as they begin to question the cost of their survival and what absolute freedom might mean.

As Thurwar inches closer to the ultra-rare “High Freedom” and Staxxx clings to her persona as a fan favorite, the story widens to show protestors, fans, executives, guards, and other Links, building a chilling picture of a country that has turned punishment into prime-time entertainment. The result is a novel that reads like a mashup of The Hunger Games, pro sports, and death-row reportage, but with footnotes and perspective shifts that keep pulling you back to the real-world prison-industrial complex it mirrors.

These are some standout lines that capture the book’s voice and concerns:

“Remember that just because something is, doesn't mean it can't change, and just because you haven't seen something before, that doesn't mean it's impossible.”

“This was the time I thought there was nothing to lose. There is always, always a bottom you can't imagine. I didn't know that then.”

“And when she walked off the set with tears in her eyes, she was smiling, because when it came down to it, she was exactly who she’d hoped she’d be.”

“I've had my eyes taken from me twenty-three hours a day. The one hour I'm out of the hole is the worst of them all. I spend the fifty-nine minutes afraid to go back in.”

“There’s always more wicked if you dig deep enough.”

World-building that feels uncomfortably close. 

CAPE is fictional, but the novel’s private prisons, racialized sentencing, and monetized punishment are only exaggerated versions of existing systems, which makes the book feel less like “sci-fi” and more like a funhouse mirror of the present.

Loretta and Staxxx are the emotional core. 

Their relationship—tender, flawed, strategic, and deeply loving- grounds the spectacle, turning each match into not just a fight for survival but a negotiation between love, guilt, and the slim hope of transformation.

The shifting perspectives and documentary-style footnotes give history, context, and statistics that interrupt the “fun” of the violence, constantly reminding the reader that everybody in the arena had a life and a story before the cameras.

The book is graphic and relentless, but the brutality is aimed squarely at exposing how easily audiences (and readers) can be entertained by other people’s suffering when the framing is slick enough.

Without spoiling specifics, the conclusion leans toward collective resistance and the possibility of change, but it never lets anyone off the hook, including the reader watching from the stands.

If you like dystopian fiction that actually has something sharp and uncomfortable to say about the real world, this belongs on your list. It’s a challenging read—emotionally and viscerally—but also one of those novels that will stick in your head the next time you see a headline about prisons, punishment, or “reality” entertainment.

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a ferocious, heartbreaking, and fiercely intelligent dystopia about prisons, profit, and the stories we tell to justify cruelty. Come for the high-stakes gladiator spectacle; stay for Thurwar and Staxxx, two unforgettable women fighting not just for their lives, but for a different world. It’s brutal, brilliantly crafted, and impossible to look away from—even when you want to.

Erwin Lemuel Oliva

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a brutal, propulsive, and surprisingly tender dystopian novel that turns mass incarceration into a televised gladiator sport, then asks why we ever accepted cruelty as usual in the first place. It is violent and often brutal to read, but it is also profoundly human, full of love, remorse, and the stubborn hope that systems, even monstrous ones, can change.
​
In an alternate near-future America, people facing execution or decades-long sentences can “volunteer” for CAPE—Criminal Action Penal Entertainment—a reality TV bloodsport where incarcerated fighters, or “Links,” kill each other on live television for the chance at eventual freedom. The novel follows Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, two Black women, teammates and lovers, who have become superstars in this system even as they begin to question the cost of their survival and what absolute freedom might mean.
​
As Thurwar inches closer to the ultra-rare “High Freedom” and Staxxx clings to her persona as a fan favorite, the story widens to show protestors, fans, executives, guards, and other Links, building a chilling picture of a country that has turned punishment into prime-time entertainment. The result is a novel that reads like a mashup of The Hunger Games, pro sports, and death-row reportage, but with footnotes and perspective shifts that keep pulling you back to the real-world prison-industrial complex it mirrors.
​
These are some standout lines that capture the book’s voice and concerns:

“Remember that just because something is, doesn't mean it can't change, and just because you haven't seen something before, that doesn't mean it's impossible.”
​
“This was the time I thought there was nothing to lose. There is always, always a bottom you can't imagine. I didn't know that then.”
​
“And when she walked off the set with tears in her eyes, she was smiling, because when it came down to it, she was exactly who she’d hoped she’d be.”
​
“I've had my eyes taken from me twenty-three hours a day. The one hour I'm out of the hole is the worst of them all. I spend the fifty-nine minutes afraid to go back in.”
​
“There’s always more wicked if you dig deep enough.”

World-building that feels uncomfortably close. CAPE is fictional, but the novel’s private prisons, racialized sentencing, and monetized punishment are only exaggerated versions of existing systems, which makes the book feel less like “sci-fi” and more like a funhouse mirror of the present.
​
Loretta and Staxxx are the emotional core. Their relationship—tender, flawed, strategic, and deeply loving- grounds the spectacle, turning each match into not just a fight for survival but a negotiation between love, guilt, and the slim hope of transformation.
​
Form and footnotes as moral commentary. The shifting perspectives and documentary-style footnotes give history, context, and statistics that interrupt the “fun” of the violence, constantly reminding the reader that everybody in the arena had a life and a story before the cameras.
​
Violence with a purpose. The book is graphic and relentless, but the brutality is aimed squarely at exposing how easily audiences (and readers) can be entertained by other people’s suffering when the framing is slick enough.
​
A hopeful, uneasy ending. Without spoiling specifics, the conclusion leans toward collective resistance and the possibility of change, but it never lets anyone off the hook, including the reader watching from the stands.
​
If you like dystopian fiction that actually has something sharp and uncomfortable to say about the real world, this belongs on your list. It’s a challenging read—emotionally and viscerally—but also one of those novels that will stick in your head the next time you see a headline about prisons, punishment, or “reality” entertainment.

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a ferocious, heartbreaking, and fiercely intelligent dystopia about prisons, profit, and the stories we tell to justify cruelty. Come for the high-stakes gladiator spectacle; stay for Thurwar and Staxxx, two unforgettable women fighting not just for their lives, but for a different world. It’s brutal, brilliantly crafted, and impossible to look away from—even when you want to.

where life is precious, life is precious

[personal copy]

this ripped me open. i don’t often get nauseous while reading. oooof. the dedication & acknowledgement really got to me too. where life is precious, life is precious. that’s the final message. 

mara henderson

brutal and beautiful. i’ll be thinking about this book for a very, very long time. 

Very brutal, but also beautifully done. Definitely not one I will forget. The footnotes add a layer of depth, making it impossible to look away from the reality at the center of this satire of the American prison system. So well written and developed. 

This may be the most brutal book I’ve ever read. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the premise or the ending. The PIC meets WWF. Loretta and Hamara. Abolition is the only way.

Amelia

Creating a spectacle out of criticising the spectacle - does it get any more meta than this? "Chain-Gang All-Stars" is fascinatingly direct and ambitious in the commentary it makes on contemporary (American) society, on the prison system, on the treatment of Black people.

It is clear that Adjei-Brenyah was conscious of the fact that with a blurb like that, it is likely that the novel will be picked up by a lot of people who are just here for the action and the genre itself. So instead of risking many of them to take this at face value and ignore the deeply political aspect of the book, he has chosen to be as clear as possible in the message and point of the novel. He carries this out without breaking a sweat, without interrupting the rhythm of the story or distrupting its immersion which shows true mastery of the craft. Rare for me to be impressed by bluntness but here, I found it done beautifully.

Creating a spectacle out of criticising the spectacle - does it get any more meta than this? "Chain-Gang All-Stars" is fascinatingly direct and ambitious in the commentary it makes on contemporary (American) society, on the prison system, on the treatment of Black people.

It is clear that Adjei-Brenyah was conscious of the fact that with a blurb like that, it is likely that the novel will be picked up by a lot of people who are just here for the action and the genre itself. So instead of risking many of them to take this at face value and ignore the deeply political aspect of the book, he has chosen to be as clear as possible in the message and point of the novel. He carries this out without breaking a sweat, without interrupting the rhythm of the story or distrupting its immersion which shows true mastery of the craft. Rare for me to be impressed by bluntness but here, I found it done beautifully.

Abbie Duggan

I gotta start by saying I knew nothing about this book going into it. I probably never would have picked it up if it wasn’t for book club because it’s not my typical style of reading. 

The story mostly follows prisoners/gladiators Thurwar and Staxx (also lovers) as they work their way up the ranks through the CAPE program towards freedom. I do wish it followed only them because having so many other characters thrown in made it hard to connect. Their story is truly a tragedy which I was not expecting at all but probably should have. 

Death for entertainment and the insane amount of fanfare behind it was frightening. I can see how this could become a thing and it truly scares me. But the chapters with fans, Will and his girl could have been left out entirely. I just don’t see how this was important information for the story. 

The protesters had a pretty big piece of the story but again, with so many characters I couldn’t find a way to connect with any of them. I had a sense that Mari and Kai were important but on this side of the story there was no resolution or if there was it was lost on me with too many characters to try and keep up with. 

I appreciated the small printed facts and did deep dives reading about each and every one of them. I think this was supposed to be about the injustice in our prison systems and brought up a lot of things to think about.

Christa Bell

🔨🔨🔨 🥪  or 3.5 stars. 

I gotta start by saying I knew nothing about this book going into it. I probably never would have picked it up if it wasn’t for book club because it’s not my typical style of reading. 

The story mostly follows prisoners/gladiators Thurwar and Staxx (also lovers) as they work their way up the ranks through the CAPE program towards freedom. I do wish it followed only them because having so many other characters thrown in made it hard to connect. Their story is truly a tragedy which I was not expecting at all but probably should have. 

Death for entertainment and the insane amount of fanfare behind it was frightening. I can see how this could become a thing and it truly scares me. But the chapters with fans, Will and his girl could have been left out entirely. I just don’t see how this was important information for the story. 

The protesters had a pretty big piece of the story but again, with so many characters I couldn’t find a way to connect with any of them. I had a sense that Mari and Kai were important but on this side of the story there was no resolution or if there was it was lost on me with too many characters to try and keep up with. 

I appreciated the small printed facts and did deep dives reading about each and every one of them. I think this was supposed to be about the injustice in our prison systems and brought up a lot of things to think about.

Jordan

A grown up Hunger Games-esque focused on the prison system. 

Emotional, dark, gritty with some satire 

Truman M Halladay

A grown up Hunger Games-esque focused on the prison system. 

Emotional, dark, gritty with some satire 

I have so much to say about this book but I still can’t collect my thoughts enough to write them here. At the end of the day it’s such a honest and personal exploration of how radical it can be to be Black and exist in a system that wants you destroyed. So complicated and so nuanced and so tragic. 

Jacque

Extraordinarily brutal both emotionally and gore-wise. No easy ending or hero arc. Chilling to think our current world is so close to this or really IS this world in most ways without the specific “gladiator” violence. In many ways it highlights the idea that even if the violence of the carceral system was more prominent to the public, people would still justify it and there would be a huge capitalistic market around it. Gripping writing and couldn’t put it down but felt like I was wincing through the horror the whole time. 

I think the author does a good job of highlighting the complex morality but ultimate humanity of a person who has committed a serious crime and asks the question - do you really “protect” a population at the price of someone’s dignity? What does that do? 

Additionally they do a good job of exploring how different actors in the system participate and justify participation even when the gore is very in your face, and it echoes all the societal participants today and their line of thinking. Sometimes the antagonists are almost cartoonishly evil rather than offered the complexity the more central characters get, but that’s a minor critique. 

Shohini Gupta

Extraordinarily brutal both emotionally and gore-wise. No easy ending or hero arc. Chilling to think our current world is so close to this or really IS this world in most ways without the specific “gladiator” violence. In many ways it highlights the idea that even if the violence of the carceral system was more prominent to the public, people would still justify it and there would be a huge capitalistic market around it. Gripping writing and couldn’t put it down but felt like I was wincing through the horror the whole time. 

I think the author does a good job of highlighting the complex morality but ultimate humanity of a person who has committed a serious crime and asks the question - do you really “protect” a population at the price of someone’s dignity? What does that do? 

Additionally they do a good job of exploring how different actors in the system participate and justify participation even when the gore is very in your face, and it echoes all the societal participants today and their line of thinking. Sometimes the antagonists are almost cartoonishly evil rather than offered the complexity the more central characters get, but that’s a minor critique. 

The multiple perspectives trace out the structure of the dystopia very effectively. It keeps the book grounded in to systemic issues that have built the cape program, rather than getting swept up into a simple struggle for survival. In fact, the amazing thing is that, even with this premise, the novel itself is less concerned with simple survival than it is with dismantling the systems of power that grind the imprisoned down. 

This book draws attention to all the tangible ways that our world is approaching theirs and the ways that we've already reached it.

Boothby

Stunning, tearingly sad, and necessary.

The multiple perspectives trace out the structure of the dystopia very effectively. It keeps the book grounded in to systemic issues that have built the cape program, rather than getting swept up into a simple struggle for survival. In fact, the amazing thing is that, even with this premise, the novel itself is less concerned with simple survival than it is with dismantling the systems of power that grind the imprisoned down. 

This book draws attention to all the tangible ways that our world is approaching theirs and the ways that we've already reached it.

the only reason i did not give this a 5 star review is that im a tiny bit disappointed by the ending. but then again this book is hard to end satisfyingly. the writing style is amaazingg and i learned a lot as someone who’s not from the US!

amanda s

Jenna Whitlow

4.5 stars

I finished this book just a few minutes ago and I'm left speechless.

Chain-Gang All-Stars is set in a future where prisoners can opt into a Hunger Games-esque arena where they fight other prisoners to the death to earn their freedom. We follow a handful of different prisoners, or Links, and their stories of how they got to where they are and their attempt to survive the ever-changing spectator sport part of CAPE (Criminal Action Penal Entertainment). 

This was brutal, funny, clever, and captivating. I adored Adjei-Benyah's writing and world building. His use of footnotes enhanced the narrative while also providing some of the most chilling aspects of the book - the story's connection to the horrifying reality of the United States' prison system. There is poignant commentary on private prisons, systemic racism within the criminal justice system, the exploitation of black bodies for entertainment, and America's obsession with violence.

My only gripe with the book was the sometimes confusing overlap of different subplots. By the end, everything was connected together, but there were a couple times that I found myself confused with the context we were in or I was dying for more of specific characters (I could read 5 more books of Thurwar and Staxxx). 

Definitely check trigger warnings on this one and strap in for a completely heart-wrenching, addicting ride.

garnet

reading this made me feel sick and sad and angry. this one is going to stick with me.

Well paced and the right amount of detail for such a mind bending and unique plot. I enjoyed every moment of it. 

Ali Angco

the main plot of Thurwar and Staxxx was engrossing and the ending gutted me. But their story felt a little diluted by the sheer number of other POVs of side characters that I couldn't really care about. I suppose it was meant to contribute to worldbuilding and provide greater perspective outside the Angola-Hammond chain, but it wasn't executed well.

halfmoon

An incredible and gut-wrenching critique of the American prison system. I'm still upset as I'm writing this review. 

Brandon Koenig

Normally I hate books set in America in almost any time period but this one gets a full pass because it was great. 

Queer love, trans character, neo-nazis get the shit kicked out of them, very nice overt critique of the prison industrial complex, reality tv, the consumption of pain and suffering on social media, the way people feel entitled to other people, capitalist bloodlust and the way we are marketed it’s consumption. 

A modern kind of running man, featuring Black love, resilience where there shouldn’t have to be, and showing the wake left by a system that locks people up and markets the coverage of the results of inequality as media instead of addressing and covering the social issues that cultivated the circumstances that bore them.

Apiecalypse Jen

Normally I hate books set in America in almost any time period but this one gets a full pass because it was great. 

Queer love, trans character, neo-nazis get the shit kicked out of them, very nice overt critique of the prison industrial complex, reality tv, the consumption of pain and suffering on social media, the way people feel entitled to other people, capitalist bloodlust and the way we are marketed it’s consumption. 

A modern kind of running man, featuring Black love, resilience where there shouldn’t have to be, and showing the wake left by a system that locks people up and markets the coverage of the results of inequality as media instead of addressing and covering the social issues that cultivated the circumstances that bore them.



Chain-Gang All-Stars

Reviews

Highlights