Girl In the Arena Review

This book is so problematic — I can't stop coming up with examples of how it falls short and messes up. Yet, despite this, I found it oddly compelling.

The premise is that, starting in the 1960's, a combat sport rose in popularity in the U.S. and the across the globe, in the tradition of Roman gladiatorial fighting. Although the sport didn't start out advocating fatalities, gradually grievous injury and death became part of the business. Over time, the sport became cult-like, having strict bylaws and rules of conduct that governed both the lives of the fighters and the lives of their spouses and children.

Girl in the Arena follows Lyn, a young woman whose mother is a professional gladiator wife. Lyn's current stepfather is her seventh gladiator father (and her favorite dad). The book starts out with Lyn's stepfather, Tommy G., preparing for the American title match. He's nervous and off his game, so Lyn gives him her dowry bracelet to wear for good luck. Well, during the match, Tommy's opponent gets ahold of Lyn's bracelet. The rules of the business dictate that Lyn must now marry the man.

From here, I was expecting a lurid romance to bloom, starting with Lyn rejecting her gladiator groom in disgust before gradually and inexorably falling in love with him. (This is cliched, to be sure, but not necessarily an unpleasant reading experience.) To my surprise, however, the book went in a different direction. Lyn makes some unexpected choices that kept me reading, despite my displeasure with the book's many failures.

Haines' writing is notably unusual. She inexplicably uses hyphens to denote dialogue. She ends chapters in weird, abrupt places. She tosses in little tangents and details that quite obviously came to her in the middle of her writing. As a result, the prose is many things — interesting, frustrating, and unsettling to name a few. I could live with the bizzare style, but my major issue was the huge plot holes, big enough to drive my crappy RAV4 through. Also, the fight scenes were a hot mess. Haines doesn't write combat or action well. Another problem was Haines' decision to make her setting a futuristic alternate reality during current times — she juxtaposes holograms who can eat food with Jon Stewart. The book was messy.

Despite all of this, I kept reading. I don't think I was necessarily enjoying myself the whole time, but I definitely felt compelled to reach the end. In regards to recommending this book to others... I'd say you should give the book a shot if it piques your interest. Just be prepared to be taken aback by this novel.

The Walled City Review

Desperation practically ekes out of Ryan Graudin's The Walled City.  These are characters gambling with enormous stakes — much more dire than simply staying alive.  Jin, Mei Yee, and Dai are dangling above the precipice of human agony. 

Jin Ling lives in Hak Nam Walled City of her own volition, surviving by stealing food and necessities, and running like hell. She is also searching for her sister, sold, by their father years before, to a drug lord.

Mei Yee, forced into sex work, lives caged in a brothel, under constant threat. Mei Yee has no other option but to sit, stagnant, in her prison, and let waves of horror and misery wash over her.

Dai cannot bring himself to set foot outside of the Walled City.  He is trying desperately to free himself from a cage of his own making, and he must enlist Jin Ling's talents to do so, by compromising the drug lord Longwai.

A note on the book's setting... Based off of Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, Graudin's Hak Nam Walled City is a gritty, compelling backdrop.   Like its real world inspiration, Hak Nam is a re-purposed fort adjacent to a larger metropolis, turned into an over-packed mess of people stacked up on top of each other. It's a cluster of anarchy — full of gang activity, drug running, and human trafficking.  In regards to time and place — it was a little confusing.  It's my deduction that The Walled City is set an indeterminate Asian country, during an indeterminate period of modernity.

At this point, after detailing the characters and setting, it might seem like I'm going to make a glowing recommendation. But, this is not the case.  In fact, I believe that this book was more promising than successful.  There were definitely some admirable aspects to it, but I would strongly hesitate in recommending the book to other readers.

One reason for this concerns the book's style. On one hand, Graudin's voice utilizes effective dirty realism.  The setting of the walled city — its grime, its poverty, its depravity — sprung to life on the page. On the other hand, there was an extraordinary amount of purple prose. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of similes and and conceits.  At best, I felt some appreciation for the imagination of Graudin's writing. At worst, the prose was so clogged with stylistic elements that I was jarred out of the story completely.

Then, there was the pacing.  This is a story that could have benefited from a break-neck pace.  Instead, the plot was structured around an 18-day countdown.  A mistake, in my opinion.  I slogged through the story. My attention struggled to find a grasp.  Instead of propelling the plot forward, the narration got bogged down in reminisces and extraneous tangents.  

Another complaint — Graudin falls into the tired trope of instantaneous attraction. (AKA — insta-love)  As if I wasn't rolling my eyes enough over the melodramatic prose, all of the hot flashes and abdominal tingling of the love-struck characters sent me over the edge.  What made this nascent relationship extra questionable is that it involved a horribly abused girl who had been forced into sex work.  Giving her such a shallow plot-line really diminished the utter gravity of her situation.  I could not switch over emotionally from descriptions of horrific, sexual abuse to scenes of giddy young love.  It caused me to withdraw emotionally from the story.

It's a shame that this book had such fatal flaws.  If the style had been plainer, the plot brisker, the relationships more thoughtful, I could see myself enjoying this book for its resonant setting and high-stakes storyline.  As it is, I give The Walled City two north stars out of five.