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An in-your-face take on the incarceration system. This book is not subtle in its comparisons to gladiatorial combat, slavery, and modern American prisons. Indeed, the reason I ended up not using it for a poll in my book club was because it was so textual and we're currently living in a time where the veneer of civility is sure looking a bit thin on too many fronts for me to feel good about making people think critically or long about yet another battle we as a society need to fight.

CONTENT WARNING: (view spoiler)[ all of the abuses you can imagine of the prison system. Racism, sexism, queer antagonism, prisoner abuse, debasement, discussion of crimes including rape and incest (hide spoiler)]

Things I appreciated:

-The social call out. The prison complex is a personal bugbear and I am 100% here for scifi that is very little "fi" and loud about how people should be treated like people. And also loud about how exploiting people who are not being treated as people is both what is currently happening and vile.

-The nuance. If I'm staying now in the world, this book plays a lot with different ways of seeing gladiator matches among violent offenders. There are very few sympathetic folks here, but you still do want to sympathize with them because of who they become when they are literally fighting for their humanity.

-The writing. I found several passages beautifully composed.

-The characters and their choices. A wide assortment from a lot of different backgrounds with very strong voices throughout.

What I did not love:

-The ending. I don't think it followed. I think I get what it was trying to say, but I don't think it succeeded in its message. I think it was trying to say that these systems are so strong that even their victims enforce them, but this was not the moment for that. I would have loved the same nuance and humanity from the rest of the book to have presented itself here.

That being said, up until that point I found it poignant and well done.