Chain-Gang All-Stars Audiobook By Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah cover art

Chain-Gang All-Stars

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Chain-Gang All-Stars

By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Narrated by: Shayna Small, Michael Crouch, Lee Osorio, Aaron Goodson
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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?

©2023 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (P)2023 Penguin Audio Dystopian Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Political Satire Science Fiction

Critic reviews

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is one of the most exciting young writers in America. His work is urgent, engaging, wildly entertaining, formally bold and politically electrifying. Read one page, any page, and you'll see what I mean. (George Saunders, author of LINCOLN IN THE BARDO)
A defiant, awe-inspiring novel that will be read, studied and celebrated for generations, Chain-Gang All-Stars leads with love. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah writes with stunning compassion and moral clarity as he interrogates every facet of our carceral world and the American spectacle of violence, never losing sight of the human cost of systemic injustice. Readers will be forever changed by this book. (Jessamine Chan, author of THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS)
Makes explicit how the spirit erodes as the body becomes currency. Adjei-Brenyah writes sharply about the economy of spectacle and the fickle alchemy between futility and hope. (Raven Leilani, author of LUSTER)
All stars
Most relevant  
Is because they can’t handle a hook that challenges their conceptions. While this is a great take on the hunger games concept, it’s also a brutal takedown of the current American justice system and its oppression of POC. It’s a great listen, but also a challenging one.

The reason some people are eating this low

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I have never read a more challenging book, challenging as in it made me really question my own views. It was beautiful and important and eye opening and often difficult to look directly at. I know this is classified as Sci-fi but it is not far from truth.

beautifully challenging

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I had to start it again because I thought I could listen and do other things. Allowed the words and voices to draw me into the world.
Loved every single bit of it.

Beautifully heartbreakingly truthful

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