Girl in the Arena (edition 2009)

This book fell flat for me. Fans of Hunger Games should know that of the two, Girl in the Arena is much more low key than the back of the book makes you expect. Not my favorite. ( )

My opinion of GIRL IN THE ARENA suffered from a sort of bait-and-switch effect, which is totally my own fault. I picked up the book as a HUNGER GAMES substitute; I assumed (bad me!) that I was picking up a second-rate imitation that would have similar highs and lows. GIRL IN THE ARENA is a totally different sort of book, and it had none of the same highs or lows.

First of all - there's very little action. Given all the talk about gladiators and the cover picture of a girl kitted out in a gladiator outfit, this is fairly surprising. There are only two fights in the entire book - one at the very beginning, and one at the very end. In the first fight, Lyn's father, Tommy, dies. The central plot of the book is really about grieving for Tommy; remembering what was so great about him, feeling his absence now that he's gone, figuring out how to forge ahead.

Second of all - there's no love story. To be fair, there's a vague, almost-kinda-sorta love triangle. Lyn has a friend who could be more than friends, and she's considering marriage with Uber, the guy who killed her father. These relationships change and develop...but I wouldn't call anything that happens in GIRL IN THE ARENA a love story.

Third of all - it's not quite a dystopia. The organization that controls the gladiators makes a pretty terrifying antagonist, and Lyn certainly doesn't live in a perfect world, but as far as I can tell the only real difference between the real world and Haines' world is the existence of the gladiator sport. I thought Haines did a pretty good job of explaining how the sport developed, but she wasn't as clear about how these bizarre By-Laws came to be, even though they play such an important role in the book.

So, it turns out that GIRL IN THE ARENA is a pretty quiet story about grief. It's well written and fairly interesting, as far as it goes, even though it wasn't what I expected I read all the way through in one sitting and enjoyed it. It's just not what I expected. ( )

I'm halfway through this and I've been reading it forever. For something that so clearly wants to be the next Hunger Games, it's horribly slow and un-engaging. It's trying way too hard to ground itself in our current reality (Boston/Cambridge landmarks, references to semi-current movies, Jon Stewart doing interviews, etc.) and makes the whole book a self-conscious attempt at satire, instead of creating this new world in which gladiator sports have risen. I'll probably finish it because I need to finish SOMETHING, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[edit:] now I'm finished. It didn't get better. Still slow to the end, and it's hard to buy into this unique world when the author does everything she can to tell me that it's right here, right now. ( )

I loved this book! It is set in a future world where Gladiators fighting to the death has once again become one of the most watched sports. Only this time it is televised.
The main character, Lyn, is the daughter of a Gladiator. When he killed in the arena her life is dramtically altered.
The book was very well thought out in my opinion. It was a quick and captivating read. I found myself on the edge of my seat excited to finish this book.

Definitely give it a read!
( )

An interesting story but not a very compelling one. The story makes a few good points about violence as entertainment, but the characters are very two dimensional and not very relatable. ( )