Chain Gang All Stars

What a devastating and utterly powerful story.

The audio narration for this book is one of the best audiobook productions I've had the pleasure of hearing. I'd highly recommend the audiobook if you consume books through audio at all.

I read this book at just the right time. It invokes questions of prison absolution—something I just started learning about—and shows a dystopian society where some things seem ‘progressive' while the irony is that the system itself is completely backwards on a technical level. Mainly, it is a massive critique of the prison system—but the book is much more complex and ambitious than I had expected.

Adjei-Brenyah had a lyricism to his prose where the ideas were bold and made the story consumable enough so that you didn't have to do a bunch of mental-gymnastics to understand the point. Simultaneously, the lyricism of the writing was just poetic enough to portray very nuanced, multi-faceted insights into topics of racism, incarceration, sexism, exploitation, capitalism, violence, etc.

I can't say I ‘enjoyed' this book; the subject matter was tough to get through. Yet, I wouldn't change a thing about it. I can see the themes explored not being subtle enough for some audiences, but I can't really fault Adjei-Brenyah for the boldness of his narrative; such a vast array of themes intertwined into a fictional story sometimes demands loudness. And I think this was one of those cases.

I'd recommend going into this book knowing as little as possible about the actual plot; it makes the journey much more engaging in my opinion.