Chain Gang All Stars

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah has written a novel that is unflinchingly violent and almost gruesome, but incredibly poignant and pointed at the same time. A world where convicts are forced to fight to the death for sport—and for the enjoyment of spectators who have no qualms about what they are watching—feels dystopian, but hews closely to our current abhorrent criminal incarceration system—something Adjei-Brenyah reminds us with no subtlety through footnotes and overt metaphor. It's a book that forces its messages on you, which can feel heavy-handed but still manages to be captivating because of the richness of the narrative and the well-written characters. It's not a book for everyone, but if you can stomach the violence and internalize the moralizing, it's a tour de force of storytelling.