Customer Reviews

Girl in the Arena

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

What happens when reality television dictates what a person does in their life?

Lyn is the daughter of seven gladiators. Her mother, Allison, has made a career out of being a gladiator's wife, studiously following the credos of the Glad wives. Lyn wants a different path for herself but a traumatic turn of events leaves her at the mercy of Caesar's, the ruling body for the Gladiator Sports Association. Will Lyn be forced to marry and become a Glad wife or will she find her own path to success?

GIRL IN THE ARENA is told entirely from Lyn's perspective and in the present tense. While I normally find present tense to be distracting, in this case it adds to the tale by drawing the reader into Lyn's point of view and adding a sense of urgency to the pacing.

The world of GIRL IN THE ARENA isn't so far distant from our current world as one might think and almost feels like an alternate history. Reality television dominates the airwaves, as does sports programming, and it's not hard to imagine a meshing of the two. Even more powerful, however, is the emphasis on the role of women and the expectations dictated to them by the Glad society. Readers will find themselves quite frustrated with the unfairness of the system while cheering Lyn's ability to think outside the box. Thad is a great secondary character and his unique situation only serves to highlight the injustices Lyn is facing.

The only caution I would give to readers regarding GIRL IN THE ARENA isn't in regards to the actual book, but rather to the marketing. The blurb on the back reveals most of the plotline while the title implies that the book will involve fighting as a large part of the plot. GIRL IN THE ARENA is more of a stream of conscious style social commentary, one that will appeal to a certain segment of both the young adult and adult readers, but it is not your typical gladiator book. Excellent!

What is this book? What's the matter with me that I don't get it? Is it the interchangeable characters, the impenetrable dialog, the cringe-inducing format, the cack-handed timing? Or is it something deeper? Or--dare I say--is it much simpler: has the author just bitten off more than she can chew?

In a dystopian near future, blood sport streams live on global TV. Neo-gladiators are talk show celebrities, and Lyn's mother Allison has made a career of marrying into gladiator stardom. But Allison is widowed for the seventh and final time, and because of arcane gladiator rules, Lyn has to marry her last father's killer. Lyn's psychic brother warns that whether she agrees or refuses this marriage, a grim future looms down hard on her.

Lise Haines takes this smart, promising premise and ruins it. She has no sense of story. Her characters talk when they should act, act when they should think, and spend so much time in gloomy shoe-gazing that whole chapters read like a teenager auditioning to star as an emo kid. Haines credits her daughter for encouraging this book, but clearly she's channeling an adult's idea of teen behavior.

Haines' sense of pace is terrible. Lyn tries to establish what a complex character she is for so long that I feel like I'm reading introductory material well past page 200. Then the ending is terribly abrupt. The conflict which the dust flap copy leads us to think is the heart of the story actually only comes up in the last sixty pages. This book takes too long to set up, and then the payoff is much too quick.

A novel about gladiators ought to include skillfully written violence. No such luck here. Haines treats combat scenes so fleetingly that I get no image of how the fights actually go down. All the gladiator scenes are very short and sketchy. Our author seems only interested in her heroine's internal hair-pulling, and everyone outside Lyn's own head is strictly one-dimensional.

May I mention the formatting? Everybody and his dog these days seems to want to rip off the deadpan quirkiness of Chuck Palahniuk and Roddy Doyle. Sadly the novelty has worn off, and the "schtick" of using em dashes as quotation marks, eschewing commas and other punctuation, and other similar text-message pidgin, is no longer idiosyncratic fun. I just get a headache trying to parse the paragraphs.

Haines writes checks she can't cash. Lyn is so egocentric that she can't let readers into her brain. This novel flags its surprises so obviously that by the time they arrive, we've been anticipating them for dozens of pages. Sadly, this book is proof that an excellent idea can be killed by rotten handling. I wanted to like this book, I really did, but I got to the end and was only glad that it was over. Ho hum.

Lyn is the daughter of seven gladiators. Her biological father was a member of the first underground gladiators. When he died in the ring, Lyn's mother, Allison, proceeded to marry another gladiator. This has gone on until now, when Lyn's seventh father, Tommy, is going in to fight. Allison is worried that Tommy is going to die in the fight and by Gladiator by-laws; she is not allowed to interact with gladiator men again. Lyn decides to give Tommy her dowry bracelet for luck.

Tommy goes into fight and dies in the ring by the hands of another gladiator by the name of Uber. Because gladiators can plunder the body of their dead opponent, he picks up Lyn's dowry bracelet. Now, by the Gladiator by-laws, Lyn is supposed to marry Uber, but she is trying to decide if she can marry her father's murderer.

Now that Tommy is dead, Allison is going off the deep end. She is trying to figure out what she is going to do now that she has lost her privileges from the Gladiator association and trying to push Lyn into the marriage with Uber go get the privileges back. Also, Thad, Lyn's special needs brother, needs all the opportunities that they can get. But when Lyn's mother cannot take it any more, it leaves Lyn trying to run the family and struggling to follow her plan to not marry Uber.

I will say that this story has potential. Lyn does everything that she can to try to keep her family together and going and it seems that everyone wants her to take the easy way out rather than listen to her plans for her own life. There are a lot of "dead spaces" in this story and a lot of it could have been eliminated and whittled down to around 150 pages or so and it would have been a much better read. This story just keeps going on and on and on and on... (I think you get my point). The ending was also really weak. This is not a book that I would recommend to anyone to read as it is currently written. However, if the author really jazzed up the ending and re-edited it, then it would have been a much better story and one I would then be able to recommend.

Shawn Kovacich
Creator of numerous books and DVD's.

I got this book at the beginning of the summer and was rather excited about it. I always enjoy dystopian futures and fresh ideas are always interesting. The back of the book said nothing but that there would be a girl fighting in the arena for (I believe, having left the book at home rather than bring it to college with me) five minutes. It sounded to be a very interesting idea and I did not for one second entertain the idea that it would just focus on cat fights.


Well, I was right. But the truth of the matter is that the girl is (SPOILER) only in the arena herself for perhaps a total of five pages. The rest of the book seems to just want to beat me over the head with the idea of "this sort of thing is WRONG and YOU are wrong for buying a book just to see a young girl fight." Which is fine, except that EVERYTHING about the book told me it would actually about fighting. If I wanted a book that was decrying violence, I would have bought a book that said it was decrying it.

Maybe I'm the only one that felt that the entire point of that book WAS that message. Instead of focusing on the girl preparing for the fight, the book is mostly about the effects of this sort of society on the family unit, namely the main character's mother's life and the relationship she had with men and her daughter. There's also something about a quasi-romantic plotline with the guy she's supposed to fight, but it has very little to do with the rest of the story as a whole.

I was also bothered by the formatting of dialogue, namely the em dash at the beginning and absolutely no quotation marks. Apparently this is how novels in Spanish are formatted, but having never read any of those myself, it comes as more of a distraction than a clever and refreshing way of formatting.

All in all, I feel that this book did not deliver anything that it promised (even the girl on the cover makes no sense as the main character is BALD for most of the book). The idea was interesting and even could have been done without violence, as seems to be its goal, but is done uninterestingly and with so little focus that I barely remember the parts that I did like, if there were anyway.

If you like social commentary, perhaps this book is for you. But if you want a story about a girl fighting? Go look elsewhere. You won't find it here.

Girl in the Arena follows Lyn, the daughter of 7 Modern Gladiators. The "Glad" society can be compared to the NFL for example, a national sport with it's die hard fans and "groupies". The difference is, a whole culture has sprung up around the Neo-Gladiators, along with rules of conduct for their wives and children. There is even a university where young women can attend and learn to become the perfect "glad wife". When Lyn's 7th father is killed in the arena, his opponent picks up Lyn's dowry bracelet, which he was wearing for luck. By the rules of the association, Lyn is now required to marry Uber, the victor. Lyn's mother, having just lost her 7th gladiator husband, is no longer allowed to marry. Lyn rebels against the rules and regulations, in an attempt to be her own woman and care for her mother and brother. That's the plot in a nutshell.

This novel reminded me of a classic that you would be required to read in Lit class. I know I say that in my reviews occasionally, but this is just how I see them. This book is really just a commentary on our culture's obsession with violence by taking a ultra-violent sport and turning it into a cultural event. The social commentary is so oblivious, it really just makes for poor reading. Glads are contracted for "X" amount of battles, their wives are only allowed to marry 7 times, and their children are hounded by the paparazzi. Rabid fans will press their bodies against glads fresh from the arena to get bloodsplatter on their clothing for a memento. I can just see a college prof. asking his class to write an essay of significance of "caging a glad", and how it can be compared to fandom in today's society.

The narrative, which is 1st person, seems distant and lacking in feeling. Lyn, the narrator, has a couple of tragedies befall her, but her emotions seem non-existent. Her love for her family is a main point in the novel, but the detachment makes her seem like a shallow, selfish girl. The writing style and flatness actually reminded me of The Handmaiden's Tale.

I was really excited to read this book. I couldn't wait to crack the binding and devour it. Sadly, not even one chapter in, I set it down, uninterested. Then picked it up again. I finished it, but only after making myself.

Sadly, this is a book, that I wish I would have bought in paperback, less of a waste of money.

Girl in the Arena was mostly girl, without the arena. I have to be honest, the initial summary really grabbed my attention. Neo-Gladiators? In an alternate reality resembling contemporary times? Count me in!

But what it surprisingly lacked, was, in fact, gladiators and the action that came with the word - or at least what I was expecting. An intriguing story from the standpoint that the world Lise Haines created is truly bewildering with the super-advanced technology and twisted idea of entertainment (makes you wonder if something along these lines isn't too far off...) but most of the action that I was expecting was packed in towards the end.

Girl in the Arena is primarily about a girl whose life was always a gamble. Lyn never really had a choice in where her life was going and finally had enough of it. Always having to follow the rules laid out by the GSA (Gladiator Sports Association) because of a contract her mother signed to be a gladiator's wife. A future she too was destined to follow. But that wasn't the kind of future Lyn wanted. She wants to take back what is hers and live a life under her own terms. And that means fighting the man who murdered her father. The man she is required by law to marry.

There were a few anecdotes tossed in that contributed to the story on an emotional level, such as Lyn's struggle to be her own woman and keep her family together. That in itself conveys a strong message, but there was not much else. And it was a bit disappointing.

Overall consensus: Girl In The Arena started off well, continued in a mediocre stupor, and ended with a tiny bang. My complaints are few, in all honesty. A little on the slow side and the format was a bit confusing and choppy at times, but if you don't mind a fairly steady read with little action and some tension here and there, then this is just what you're looking for.

Girl in the Arena was not at all what I expected. I was ready for a delightfully violent, action-packed novel. What I got was nearly the complete opposite--Girl in the Arena deals more with the moral implications of neo-gladiators than the actual action of it, and is consequently slow-paced.

Lyn is the daughter of seven gladiators. In her alternative America, gladiators are famous athletes, with millions of fans across the country--much like football players are to our society. The GSA (Gladiator Sports Association) is cult-like in nature--Lyn has always felt apart from all other people her age, and the Gladiator Bylaws have governed her life. The gladiator way of life proves stifling to Lyn, who'd rather be a pacifist and live normally. But when her stepfather Tommy is killed in the arena, everything changes. The GSA has some nasty tricks up their sleeve, and they're making it difficult for Lyn to live the life she wants to--foreclosing on her mother's possessions and house, and effectively blackmailing Lyn. And of course, there's the problem of having to marry the man who killed her father.

I wish to disillusion any of you out there who think this is a book about Lyn fighting in the arena. It's not--in fact, that part doesn't come until the very end of the book, and what actually happens is sadly short-lived. This book is really about Lyn dealing with the implications of a gladiator life she can't escape.

Lyn's parallel world was intriguing, but it was actually very similar to our own--with the exception of the gladiators and some unbelievable hologram technology. I actually have a big problem with the holograms in this story--in no way does Haines ever explain how in a world nearly identical to our own can possess technology so out of reach in ours. I felt that the holograms were a convenient crutch to lean on--especially as the story progressed and a key plot point was revealed. And although there was the hint of a love triangle, nothing of note ever happened in that department.

And the dialogue seriously annoyed me. Instead of the trusty, good old quotation marks, Haines saw fit to employ dashes. Which I understand is a stylistic choice, but I'd have enjoyed this book much more if the dialogue hadn't been structured so strangely. I mean, I was annoyed when James Joyce used dashes, so I'm even more frustrated by it in Girl in the Arena. I felt like the dialogue really pulled the story down, to the point where I was literally trying to imagine the dashes as quotation marks instead of paying attention to the story. I mostly skimmed through the dialogue without getting a real sense of the conversation unfolding.

In addition, the ending was very anticlimactic and rushed. I was severely disappointed with it, and I think it reflected the whole essence of the book-- action-less when it could be action-ful.

But all in all, Girl in the Arena was an enjoyable read. Ultimately, it was a intriguing social commentary on a possible world where professional sports and reality TV have been taken too far. I did like Lyn as a heroine--which is saying something because lately I've been disliking female main characters in young adult fiction more than I have been liking them. Her motivations and most of her actions were admirable--and her defiance against having anyone control her had me rooting for her. Lyn was the best aspect of this book since she was a very strong protagonist. And I adore the cover, even if it is sorely inaccurate.

This novel introduces a heroine who's tired of violence, but can't get away from it. The plot's pretty predictable, but some of the characters are interesting enough to catch your attention. The heroine's emotional issues with her father figure and the violence in her life carry most of the story.

The issue is wading through the author telling us stuff, not description of scenery, but often explaining what the dialogue is telling us. Since we already have lots of dialogue to tell us what's going on, it's pretty safe to skim the wordier paragraphs.

Instead of normal quotation punctation, this novel is written similarly to fanfiction in that dialogue is set aside by some convention of the author, in this case a dash at the beginning of the line when someone new speaks. Instead of preventing people from skipping non-dialogue parts, the dashes make the eye skim faster and may be confusing for some readers.

This book is a short read for those who like alternate universes with social commentary thrown into the story.

I am a big fan of Suzanne Collin's book The Hunger Games. The blurb on this book says it will appeal to fans of The Hunger Games. Also the cover caught my interest, so I ordered it on the VINE program.

Plot summary: In Post Modern America, Gladiators fight to the death in an Arena near Boston. Lynn's Mother has been married to 7 Gladiators. Lynn and her brother Thad currently live with their Mom and stepdad who is the current Gladiator champ for America. All Gladiator's and their family's have to live by the rules of the "Caeser" organization. Through a series of events Lynn ends up having to briefly fight in the arena.

My thoughts:
1. I found the third person narrative difficult to read. Also when people speak it is indicated by a new sentence starting with -. I found this distracting.
2. Lynn is an engaging heroine but I found some of her choices annoying.
3. There are two potential love interests, but nothing really evolves.
4. The novels is dark at times, but I thought it created a nice atmosphere of bleakness.

This was a mediocre effort to attract readers who are Hunger Games fans.