Noodle
Chain-Gang All-Stars could have been an awesome book, but its many flaws can not be overlooked. For most of my reading I wanted to grade it even lower, but also the book's strengths can not be overlooked.
The novel hits the nail in the head with its social and political commentary. I find this book to be such an earnest and convincing critique of the US penal system and police brutality. But, from my perspective, Brenyah suffers from a common problem amongst today political landscape: he's pointing things out, but never offering a solution. Marissa, a character that is part of an activist group against hard action-sports, basically tells the reporter that they don't know what to do about the prison problem, but for sure the prison system needs to be dismantled. This opens the book up to bad-faith criticism like “prison is bad, but it is irreplaceable”. It is not. While rehabilitation was hinted throughout the book, I feel that it should have been the central theme.
As an aesthetic, the book is bleak. I did not find its composition interesting, the cast is rather large but empty, the plot is really thin. The jumps in PoV were well exectuted, I did not find them jarring, but I also did not find them well-timed. The story overall has a weird pacing, that threw me off most of the time.
The characters do not drive the story, they are unwilling participants in a life they did not choose. Or did they? Here I find another ideological and/or philosophical problem. Most of the cast were condemned for violent, unjustifiable crimes (exept for Staxxx). I acknowledge that the author hinted multiple times to systemic injustices that create the environment where violent crime is born, but it's not really reflected in the narrative. Thurwar used to beat her girlfriend, ending up killing her. Why? I have no damn clue. I don't know Thurwars life and the environment she was raised in. Hendrix killed his girlfriend and her lover. Why? Dunno, he's just a guy who likes to sing. So I feel less inclined to be sympathetic towards presumed psychopaths.
The plot, as I say, is really thin. Not much happens. Which is really a shame. I get the desperation and bleakness the author is trying to portray, but I would have loved to have some payoffs. The plot is so thin that the book does not even feel like a narrative, but more like a series of pictures of desperate, hopeless and tortured people.
Now, I expected the novel called Chain-Gang All-Stars to be an action-packed blockbuster. Well, the action is not quite there, the fights are short and unimaginative. I was overall disappointed in this regard.
The ending was also a huge letdown. I suppose the intention was to close Thurwar's arch somewhat poetically – being freed by the same act that imprisoned her: killing her loved one. But it shatters Thurwar's character completely. She is now a person who does not act according to her beliefs, she's a hypocrite. She is complacent and complicit to the system that produced her so much suffering. She is a hopeless soul who talks about doing better, but when it's time to act she does whatever keeps her alive. Staxxx offered the resolution that Thurwar should survive to fight the system as a free person. But that is a lie. Only by participating in this last fight, Thurwar and Staxxx created a very dangerous precedent for the battlegrounds, proving that two persons who love each other will really fight each other to the death.
The book was okay, I don't regret reading it but I will not ever read it again.
The ideas are good, but the execution is lacking at times. Even when Kate Alice Marshall is at her finest, her writing is still mediocre in my humble opinon.
The characters aren't very compelling. At best they are rough sketches, at worse they are just plot devices. Excepting the protagonist, Ethan received a little more characterization than other cast members. And, boy, is he all over the place.
I could not believe for a second that Cass and Naomi were good friends. I've heard that, the author mentioned it for sure, but I never saw it.
Maybe the greatest sin of this book is the dialogue. At least, for me personally, it did not hit at all. I had the impression I was reading the script for a Disney Channel soap opera. Given that Marshall is mainly a YA author I think this can be, if not excused, at least understood.
During my time with this book I was getting debut novel vibes and I strongly believe that the author, if she so desires, could get over her YA influences and write some really good pieces.
