Girl in the Arena

I think I tweeted about this book not too long ago, but I am going to do a more in-depth review now. Girl in the Arena was an absolutely fabulous book. I picked it up, originally, because I had just finished reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, in which a girl and boy are selected to fight to the death in an arena in order to try to get food for their hometown. Girl in the Arena sounded very similar in that, there was a girl who was going to have to fight to the death in order to be able to live her life as she wanted. Sounds good, huh?



Well, it was! It ended up being this giant metaphor for society. The women in the "Glad" culture were completely dedicated to their men... to supporting their time in the arena, to raising their children to be gladiators, to subscribing to a completely restrictive lifestyle. It was rather sickening. Lyn, the main character, sees the phoniness of the situation. She sees that there is more to life than being a gladiator's wife... but there is one problem. Another gladiator takes Lyn's "dowry" bracelet from her dead father on the battlefield. And this means, according to Glad culture, that she must marry this man.

The solution? Fight to the death. She wins, there is no marriage. She loses? Well, she'll be dead, so it won't matter.

The suspense is riveting!

And I won't ruin the plot for you or tell you the ending, but suffice it to say that this was a very entertaining read with many levels of understanding. It is a story of the struggle for freedom and the absurdity of societal traditions that will keep you on the edge of your seat.