Our first book recommendation at Book Hangover Club is Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. This powerful book is incredible and absolutely worth your time. I don’t know why it took me so long to get around to this one. But now that I’ve read it, I can’t praise it enough.

I struggle to say I “loved” it given the subject matter…but I definitley appreciate it on a very deep level.

The novel is set in a dystopian America where incarcerated individuals can choose to participate in a for-profit, televised program, fighting in deadly matches with the hope of one day seeing “High Freed.” Very few survive long enough to reach this goal, but our protagonist is close—only a few battles remain. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah uses extreme violence to evoke empathy and compassion from readers-and it works.

He also chose to include disturbing and factual footnotes about our current reality in America. Just when the story feels too exaggerated or unreal, these notes serve as stark reminders of how dark our existing systems truly are.

“About 14,700 complaints alleging sexual and physical abuse were lodged against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) between 2010 and 2016. Thousands and thousands. ICE was created in 2003 as part of the government’s response to the September 11 attacks.”

(If you’ve been keeping up with the current state of American politics…these footnotes read like horror.)

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