Girl in the Arena

Sep 14, 2010 Lucy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: wasn-t-for-me, young-adult, dystopian, how-did-this-get-published, milking-a-money-cow, oh-the-hype, so-very-awful

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This view will contain spoilers. All my reviews will probably contain spoilers. I can't be bothered to filter through these things and carefully camoflouge facts from you. This is not the review to read to decide whether or not you want to read the book. This review is a warning that you might wish you'd die if you read the book and it's chock full of spoilers. If you can spoil a plot this craptastic.

Every now and then in the Young Adult genre we have a break out success that spawns one hundred...more

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May 15, 2012 jo mo rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopia, 2009, cover-swoon, own, tough-heroine, gift-to-me, gladiator-esque, reviews, 3-stars, kick-ass-heroine, autism-asperger-s, re-reads

this is like nothing and everything i expected it to be.

born into a world of violence, 18-year-old lyn, the daughter of 7 neo-gladiators decides to fight uber, the guy who killed her 7th father and took her dowry bracelet, so she can claim her now threatened independence and prevent being a glad-wife like her mother, who represents everything she doesn't want to be. but there's also thad, her unusual 8-year-old brother, seemingly able to predict the future, who she wants to take care of.

before...more

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Nov 08, 2010 Anne Osterlund rated it 4 of 5 stars

Lyn is a pacifist—she thinks. Though avoiding violence is quite a challenge when one is the daughter of seven gladiators (six dead, one alive) and—even worse—a Gladiator’s Wife. But nothing in Lynn’s life has ever been easy. Not watching her former fathers die in their matches, or protecting her oracle of a brother from being placed in a facility, or worrying about her mother’s next faux death.

But when Lyn’s bracelet is picked up in the arena by her father’s killer and she has to choose between...more

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Jun 25, 2010 Morgan F rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: 13 and up

Shelves: own, young-adult, dystopian-apocalyptic, 2000s, its-a-girl, read-2010, medium-sized

I have really conflicted feelings about this book. I was expecting some cheap Hunger Games rip-off, but it wasn't like that at all.

This book is about Lyn, who has had seven gladiator fathers, due to her mothers career as a Glad wife. As a substitute to war, an entire Glad culture has arisen, blood sport being just as common as football. Lyn's life is ruled by bylaws put forth by the Gladiator Sports Association. It is these bylaws that say she is required, through a chain of unfortunate events,...more I have really conflicted feelings about this book. I was expecting some cheap Hunger Games rip-off, but it wasn't like that at all.

This book is about Lyn, who has had seven gladiator fathers, due to her mothers career as a Glad wife. As a substitute to war, an entire Glad culture has arisen, blood sport being just as common as football. Lyn's life is ruled by bylaws put forth by the Gladiator Sports Association. It is these bylaws that say she is required, through a chain of unfortunate events, to marry Uber, the warrior who defeated her seventh father in the arena. Rather than give in to these demands, she proposes an alternative: fighting him in the arena.

Initially, I thought I wasn't going to like this. At first it was because I thought it was a rip-off. Then it was because the writing and formatting was odd and distracting. And then it was because I realized that the action would be slow-coming. But then, about half-way through the book, I realized I kinda liked it. Lyn, the narrator was endearing, and the writing was starting to grow on me. I stopped with the expectations and just went with the flow. By the end, I didn't hate it as much as I did to start with.

The writing is not typical of a young-adult book, and that threw me off for a while. I appreciated that the author was doing something different. And I shall warn everyone right now, this book has no quotation marks. This drove me insane to begin with, and I was frustrated with the author. I mean, why couldn't she use quotation marks like a normal author? But in no time, I didn't even realize the difference.

I liked Lyn. She was endearing. She wasn't a Mary Sue, yet she wasn't a stereotypical bad-ass robot. I understood her motives. But I did not understand her brother. Her little brother, who is autistic, is also supposedly a prophet/oracle. I thought this book was set in an alternative now. I don't get the whole mysticism thing. And I also didn't get how they had things like You Tube still, but also virtual living machines that can create a functioning virtual being. But I did like the whole history of GSA. That does seem odd enough to be true.

Don't expect a hardcore thrilling action novel. Despite being about violence, this book had very little action. Lyn wasn't even in the arena until the final pages. I think this is misleading on the marketer's part. This book is way more contemplative than it sounds. I got bored in some places, but I was overall absorbed.

I am still confused about my feeling for this book, so I apologize for the possible wishy-washiness of this review. I can see how some people hate it, some people love it. It's an odd little book, and here's an odd little book trailer to match.(less)

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Apr 11, 2010 oliviasbooks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult-fiction, scifi-dystopian-apocalyptic, ya-contemporary, stays-with-me, read-2010, beautiful-writing, in-love-with-the-cover

Girl in the Arena is a science fiction novel. Yet it does not tell a future story; it is firmly anchored in a – only slightly altered – ‘now’ by using plenty of pop-culture references to today’s society (Youtube, Second Life, Sofia Copolla ...).

Closing one eye the fictional turns of the past decades and the imagined outcome for the present even seem almost likely. But the likelihood of the exact setting does not strike me as so important. If you peel away the alterations, you basically find the...more Girl in the Arena is a science fiction novel. Yet it does not tell a future story; it is firmly anchored in a – only slightly altered – ‘now’ by using plenty of pop-culture references to today’s society (Youtube, Second Life, Sofia Copolla ...).

Closing one eye the fictional turns of the past decades and the imagined outcome for the present even seem almost likely. But the likelihood of the exact setting does not strike me as so important. If you peel away the alterations, you basically find the engaging story of a young woman who grew up inside a very constrictive and conservative sub-culture - comparable to a religious sect minus a deity – whose present leader cunningly makes tons of money by selling his congregation’s members as both admired and dreaded celebrities to the media (fan merchandising included), by feeding the masses’ delight in violence and death and by having a tight grip on the members’ private fortunes.

The heroine has started having doubts about her community’s harsh set of 128 rules and wonders if the founder’s original ideas are misinterpreted by the leader. The reader wishes for her to be able to break herself free, but she is – quite realistically – aware of the effects her refusal to comply would have familywise and moneywise: Not fulfilling her family’s expectations would mean abandoning her emotionally disabled (maybe autistic) younger brother she fiercely loves, upsetting her manic-depressive mother, who has a couple of unsuccessful suicide attempts behind her, and could result in losing the house. In spite of her resolution not to become a replica of her fanatic, unhappy and heavily dependent mother, her beliefs and her behaviour show that her childhood spent inside the community has rooted deeply and the only friends she can turn to for advice and support are members as well who offer only limited comprehension or none.

Lise Haines has found a clever way to make us wonder about restrictive communities, about good intentions / idealistic theories turned fundamentalistic without (mis)using the concept of an existing church or association to demonstrate. I admire that. Also she points out how only slight changes in the law or even one-time exceptions can result in a chain of unforeseen consequences that alter society and for instance it’s view on the matter of life and death. A third sociocritical impulse deals with the power of the media and how a single powerful person can play the media. An incident noted casually that shocked me, for instance, was the promise of free-parking for all spectators who left the arena within 20 minutes after a show: The arena management speculated on the “good trampling” to occur, recorded as a body count on the margin of the TV coverage, which guaranteed the undivided interest of the viewership.

Last but not least it remains to say that all this would not have sufficed for a four star rating. The family problems and how Lyn dealt with them, the tender relationship to her brother, her slow personal growth, her strength and also her surprise, when she recognized she liked her enemy in a way, were well done in my opinion. Even the unusual use of hyphens for direct speech added to the quiet melody of the enfolding drama.

A comment about the cover: I love it, but it is not correct. Lyn has a shorn head at the time she enters the arena as a gladiator.(less)

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Feb 09, 2012 Penny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: disappointing, dystopian, games-people-play, grrrl-power, guilty-pleasures, penny-s-favorite-books, reviewed-books, ya-fiction

I want to give Girl in the Arena four--possibly even five--stars, because it has something few other books I've had the pleasure of reading has. Something I've been looking for, desperately, within YA fiction. Something that just...I don't know... Just speaks to me, I guess; feels true. I can relate to it, to the protagonist, how she feels. I understand her because, in a way, I was her. Maybe, from time to time, I still am her.

To help you understand where I'm coming from I need to go back. Way...more

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Feb 20, 2010 Rebekah rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 25, 2013 Edelmira rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, reviewed

Girl in the Arena really interested me at first. Gladiator fighting in an urban setting? Neat. But I was so, so disappointed and ended up struggling to finish this book.

Where to start, where to start.

Let's begin with the world building. Girl in the Arena takes place in an alternate world where basically everything is the same, only gladiator fighting is a thing. A big thing. Let's stop here. Why would millions of people watch two guys hacking away at each other (and one eventually being murder...more

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Jun 25, 2011 Grace rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

Where to begin with this book? I thought the idea was phenomenal. I mean a book about gladiators!! I don't even think that's really been done before in the young adult genre...and to be honest I'm getting a little distressed and bored from all these standard vampire/werewolf/zombie teen books. It is basically the same concept and plotline redone by different authors in every novel I pick up. It's an inescapable representation now quite overdone in the juvenile/young adult world. There were endle...more Where to begin with this book? I thought the idea was phenomenal. I mean a book about gladiators!! I don't even think that's really been done before in the young adult genre...and to be honest I'm getting a little distressed and bored from all these standard vampire/werewolf/zombie teen books. It is basically the same concept and plotline redone by different authors in every novel I pick up. It's an inescapable representation now quite overdone in the juvenile/young adult world. There were endless possibilites that could be explored with a gladiator storyline and I had hope that Haines would branch off into all these different options. However, I ended up being considerably disappointed in the lack of development throughout the plotline and the confusion regarding several of the main characters as well as the back-and-forth philosophical point in the feminist perspective of the story.

First of all, this story is not a dystopian novel as I been led to believe when I picked it up. It actually occurs in the present day time and most of the same historical events that have taken place in the current society today have taken place in the novel but some of the historical time periods have been altered to allow for the rising and structuralization of the GSA, or the Gladiator Sports Association. The Glad- games are kind of like the Ultimate Fighting Championships that take place, although these fights either end in severe mutilation or even death.

Lyn is the daughter of a Gladiator and as such is expected to become a Glad- wife. In the beginning of the story, she seems to want to just forget about Glad- sports altogether and take off in hiding as she morally opposes them and wants to build a life devoid of their controll. The end of the story gets a little confusing with Lyn's character though because all of a sudden she wants to become a Gladiator herself and possibly lead to a revolution overthrowing the Glad- way of life. **Spoiler** Then she takes an easy out when she is thrown into an actual competition herself though and ends up not really even fighting. I mean I expected an all out fight to the death in this book. That's what it claims transpires on the back summary, but that's not how it happens. I felt bewildered and frustrated by Lyn's character throughout the entire book. One moment, she's over-emotional and upset about something, and the next she acts cold and detached from emotion. At one point, she has a dream to become a revolutionary but then decides she only cares about herself and the outcome of her actions in reference to just herself. Then she's also between two guys the entire time. When she meets Uber, the Gladiator who killed her father in battle, she hates him for what he's done but then as the two become increasingly closer, Lyn becomes comfortable with him and starts experiencing feelings for him because she finds out he honestly regrets having to fight her father....but on the other hand, she also has Mark who is a family friend that's in love with her supposedly (but he basically ends up with somebody else at the end...yeah that didn't make sense) and she's confused about who she should choose to be with.

****SPOILER****
I thought that using the avatar at the end to fight in the battle in Lyn's place was completely ridiculous. C'mon and actually fight if it honestly mattered that much to you to petition the GSA to truly allow this spar. Lyn essentially uses her avatar as her scapegoat. I wanted to see her really fight and stand up for her beliefs in a passionate manner but this allowed her an easy out and was disconcerting to say the least.

Also, what was up with her brother's predictions? I didn't understand why that was necessary at all in the story. And how is it even realistic or possible? If there was a reason why he had the predictions or an overall outcome to them that led to the culmination of the book, than that would have been understandable, but frankly this random idea clogged up the story to me and was completely unrelatable and irrelevent to the point that was trying to be made.

The only part of this story I truthfully enjoyed was the existance of the feminist beliefs that some of the characters in the story took up. Lyn was only tolerable at those points in the book when she wanted to take up the symbol of hope for the women in the Glad- society and point them in a new direction away from being submissive and controlled Gladiator wives. I love books that stand up for these kinds of ideals and that was literally one of the only reasons I didn't give this book 2 stars instead of 3.

I expected more than I received from this novel :/(less)

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Jun 14, 2011 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: 15 years and up

Shelves: science-fiction

Well, it was better than I thought. Maybe.

The book is a satire of modern society-- of its fascination with horror, violence, and celebrities. It is set in the future, and follows Lynn, a daughter of a neo-gladiator. Essentially her father's job (he is the neo-gladiator) is to fight to the death on live television. Pretty great job, eh? The books begins with Lynn's account of the history of the neo-gladiator sport, so the readers have some background about what is happening.

I was super pessi

...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Jennifer Wardrip rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: trt-posted-reviews

Reviewed by Karin Librarian for TeensReadToo.com

In today's society, we enjoy brutal sports like World Wrestling Entertainment and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Imagine, if you will, a world where we also couldn't wait for the next gladiator match.

Lyn lives in just such a world. In fact, she is deeply entrenched in the Glad lifestyle. Lyn's mother has had seven husbands - all Glad fighters. She has been widowed six times, her husbands always dying in the arena. Her latest husband, Tommy, is...more

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Aug 12, 2010 Eliora Vespera rated it 2 of 5 stars

http://scholarberry.blogspot.com/

"These are not my enemies."

My Rating: 7/10

Lise Haines' Girl in the Arena is spectacular! The story was centered around a girl named Lyn, who had 7 fathers. All 6 were dead and Tommy is the 7th. All 7th were gladiators.

Then came one fight--and Tommy's dead. Allison (Lyn's mom) can't support Thad (Lyn's brother) and Lyn anymore. Caesar's (the Hollywood in the gladiator world) won't let Allison marry for the 8th time, cause 7 is the limit.

Lyn had given her bracelet...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Renuka rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: action, young-adult, dystopia, romance

This book would have been awesome except for the fact that there were no quotation marks. This made the writing feel really vague to me and gave me a headache. I think this is probably a personal issue and I don't know if anyone else thought the same thing but the no qoutations made me go "Wait? What just happened?", more than once. But I still really liked the whole marry your fathers murderer because he picked up your bracelet thing. It was really interesting for me for some reason! And the fa...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Clare rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

A vague, poorly written book trying to capitalize on the rush, brutality and teen sexual tension that the Hunger Games offered. Oh, and there's a useless mother and needy sibling as well. Same dissatisfying ending as Mockingjay, too. Lise Haines is not an author whose writing style I enjoy. Lots of dashes instead of quotes. It's hard to understand where the conversation starts and the sarcastic inner remark begins. Part of the reason why grammar nerds get so upset is that a message is clearer wh...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Joann rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love writing reviews right after I've finished reading the book. Which is how I’m doing this at 3:00 am. Now looking at the genres listed for this book, I don’t see anything that quite describes it. It is not Science Fiction, I would not call it Action, it’s not a Romance, and I scoffed when I saw Urban Fantasy, and I would frown heavily at calling it Dystopian, and that is the major problem plaguing this book.

I feel like I should be typing in all caps with a whole lot of exclamation points. I...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Irene rated it 2 of 5 stars

It's really a 2.5
SPOILER

Lyn, the daughter of the seven glads. After her father is killed in a gladiator fight, she has to marry her fathers murderer, and to get out of this marriage she will do anything, even if it means going into the arena herself. The characters were okay if not a little to bland. One pacifist who is forces to sit through her fathers' fights, one best friend who i in love with the main character, one gladiator who had to kill the man he SAYS he admires. The one character i re...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Paula Phillips rated it 4 of 5 stars

Girl in the Arena takes us into a future society where instead of basketball and WAGS you have GSW's , where you are only allowed to marry a total of seven times and that if a gladiator picks up your bracelet , you have to marry him. For Lyn , her whole life has been surrounded by these rules with her mother being a GSW - Gladiator Society Wife and being the only women to have married seven gladiators. Allison, wants this life for her daughter Lyn but she can't think of anything worse as she has...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Sarah rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: terrible

Maybe I've just had some pretty good luck in picking out books to read but I RARELY come across a book I dislike as much as I did Girl in the Arena. I wavered on whether or not to give the book 2 stars versus 1 and went back a forth a couple time rating it on Goodreads. There were several things about this book that weren't terrible. The author created ideas within the book that were intriguing. Unfortunately, I was just blown away with disappointment by the overall result. It is a book that is...more Maybe I've just had some pretty good luck in picking out books to read but I RARELY come across a book I dislike as much as I did Girl in the Arena. I wavered on whether or not to give the book 2 stars versus 1 and went back a forth a couple time rating it on Goodreads. There were several things about this book that weren't terrible. The author created ideas within the book that were intriguing. Unfortunately, I was just blown away with disappointment by the overall result. It is a book that is forgettable and was a waste of time to read. I feel really harsh for saying that but I just think that I was really hoping for something stunning and I just can't get over how (for lack of a better word) 'blah' it was.

I was so excited about this book. I loved the potential I thought it could have. I mean, who wouldn't?? It was about gladiators! There were so many amazing possibilities for the storyline. But overall, I found it to be rather dull. Unlike what the blurb leads you to believe, it's not a dystopian society Lyn and the other characters are living in. For example, one of the first lines of the book even talks about the War in Vietnam (she brings up this specific war a couple times but the book doesn't take place during that war's time period so I'm really left to draw no other conclusion but that she wanted to push her opinion about the war onto her readers since she mentions a few times how stupid and pointless the war was. However, even if that is her opinion, it didn't need to go in her young adult novel. I find that a little ridiculous and wholly immature. There are so many other places where she could've made her stance known. This place should not have been one of them.) -- Sorry about the rant there.

Girl in the Arena is about the main character, Lyn, living in the exact same world we live in today - the only catch is that in her world there's gladiator sport. Men and women sign up to fight each other. Many times these fights lead to maiming injuries or death. And like the Roman people of old, the crowd cheers for blood. Lyn is the daughter of a gladiator who was killed when she was still a baby. Since then, her mother has re-married 6 times to eventually lose each husband in a fight to the death. The book opens with the seventh father still alive and getting ready to fight in a battle against a boy named Uber. Before the match, Lyn gave her father her dowry bracelet for luck, which turns out to be a mistake. For when her seventh father falls in the arena, Uber is the man that picks it up. Any man who touches the dowry bracelet is someone you have to wed. But Lyn wants no part of the gladiator culture and so throughout the rest of the book, she tries to figure out a way around marrying the man who killed her seventh father.

Lyn is so against becoming a Glad-wife that she decides to forsake her pacifist ways and fight Uber for her freedom. However, at the end of the book when Lyn and Uber are finally going to face off, Lyn takes the easy way out at first and has a technologically created avatar fight him in her place. This didn't make any sense since she had gone to a lot of trouble to get this approved. It was a cowardly way out. Nevertheless, she's eventually thrown into the area. Out of all of the scenes in this book, I was expecting at least this one to be epic - an all out battle to the death, Lyn fighting for her life, which is what the blurb leads you to believe will happen. But in what could've been a great scene, she doesn't even really end up fighting. It was incredibly anticlimactic.

Lyn is a back and forth character. She completely switches views a few times or says she believes one way but acts in the opposite way. She's wishy-washy, which in my opinion makes a character seem weak. I just didn't like her. Not only is Lyn someone I found hard to deal with but I didn't like the supporting characters either. Uber is made out to be what I would term pitiable. Lyn develops feeling for her father's killer after she learns Uber didn't want to fight him. But Uber is an oaf - not an attractive quality in what I want to see in a character's love life. Another supporting character is her best friend, Mark. Mark is in love with her but she's not sure how she feels about him. Then, at the end of the book, he finds someone else, how much sense does that make?! Don't get me wrong, I don't really like it when there's unrequited love but it was so flippantly put in the book, it was incredibly sudden, and I think it makes him look fickle by switching love interests so suddenly. Therefore, I definitely wasn't a huge fan of him. Another character in the book is her brother, Thad. Thad who has some sort of mental issue or learning disability but who is an oracle and tells people's futures. Thad was mentioned in the book a lot but I really don't understand why he was in there at all. His predictions didn't help the story along or lead to anything. The character confused the story more than anything.

This book did not at any point put me on the edge of my seat. It took me a few days to read, not because of the difficulty or length or because I had something else to do but because it was just that easy to put down. I grew bored in several places. Again, this book was utterly forgettable. I'll never read it again.
(less)

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Feb 27, 2013 Jenna rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, science-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was a disappointing book in that until about midway through, I expected to rate it four stars easily. The premise was unique and the main character strong and engaging, but the gimmick of the story is what ultimately undermined the whole book for me.

The idea is that Lyn lives in our world only it includes a hugely-popular Gladiator Sport where men (and apparently a few women) fight, often to the death, for spectators. A culture has risen up around this sport which encompasses the families o...more This was a disappointing book in that until about midway through, I expected to rate it four stars easily. The premise was unique and the main character strong and engaging, but the gimmick of the story is what ultimately undermined the whole book for me.

The idea is that Lyn lives in our world only it includes a hugely-popular Gladiator Sport where men (and apparently a few women) fight, often to the death, for spectators. A culture has risen up around this sport which encompasses the families of the (mostly men) who fight and die for the single corporation that runs this sport. There are a lot of inherent problems with this concept, but suspension-of-disbelief covers them well enough and the author does a nice job of building characters to illustrate the various roles in the Glad(iator) community so that's all fine.

No, the big problem is that otherwise the world is exactly the same as our world. Same TV shows, same movies, same issues in the news, same wars, same name-brands and famous people. But somehow Second Life and its avatars have become so amazing and realistic that -- with no other changes to anything in this world and with no logical technology to generate them beyond a little modem -- you can have a completely life-like avatar of a real person walking around your house (or, as it turns out, around the arena fighting your opponent in the finale) talking and behaving like an independent individual, and even eating food that then just vanishes because laws of thermodynamics be damned, I guess.

The concept of this world-changing technology existing in the current world with no other changes reflected or even implied beyond this unlikely application is so beyond the suspension of disbelief that the core crazy concept of the world being mostly okay with a fight-to-the-death sport run by a cabal that runs the lives of everyone involved ruins the whole fantasy. As a reader, I started asking way too many questions at that point.

Such as -- how did this all-encompassing culture rise up in about 17 years (because our heroine's mother's first husband died before Gladiating became legal and her last husband died right after our heroine turned eighteen)? How is it possible in the modern world that this culture would arise so suddenly with such an entrenched and backwards attitude toward women and BY the women themselves? Why are girls who were raised in this nascent "culture" so into it that our heroine seems one of the only ones who doesn't want to live her mother's 1950s but way more widowy lifestyle? What are the reporters crowding around the heroine's house night and day reporting on? Yes, I know this happens, but huge crowds don't just stay forever when nothing happens for days and days -- news and gossip outlets just don't have the kind of money to do that and once things die down, the crowds dissipate. I can see paparazzi doing this but not reporters.

The author clearly wanted to make a point about reality TV and our complacency about violence and exploitation for entertainment, but her world-building is sloppy and as a result, the big fight the book promises and wanders toward ends up being pretty anti-climactic. There is also a magical autistic child who makes predictions which I really have no idea why that was included. And, again, this was a detail -- legitimate fortune-telling -- that should have changed the world more.(less)

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Feb 02, 2013 Mariah Wiley rated it 1 of 5 stars

*Spoilers* well... I had to read this book for English and Omfg! I didn't like it. first the no quotes thing i dont like. second Lyn seems like a really stupid girl. she gives her father her bracelet for good luck(stupid for two reasons. 1 he is going to DIE! and the bracelet is going to end up in ubers hands forcing her to marry him. 2 the stupid prick was cheating on her mother!) Uber the freaking guys name is Uber! if the book was better then his name wouldn't have mattered but it just added...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Bel rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really rate this book a 4.5, leaning toward the 5 star. Just an awesome book! those of us that like the hunger games will enjoy this book, though for those that say it is a copy of the hunger games...NEWSFLASH... is NOT the hunger games. a similar method, but quite a different concept. This book had quite a bit of action (!), had great characters, and discussed (in a subtle you-font-actually-recognize-what-the-book-is-telling-you-way) "deep" concepts. The main character was great! you could re...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Great concept, poorly executed. Plot holes galore. Villain's actions make no sense for someone who's supposedly so business minded- If you deny your employees their reward after they've completed their gig (fighting to the death), who the hell is gonna wanna work for you? It all felt so lazy, as if the author had an end game but couldn't be bothered to think of believable paths for her MC to get there so she just threw in new rules for the Gladiator Handbook. Lazy lazy writing.

I just finished re...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Ruhama rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: teen

Imagine a parallel world where the Gladiator games were reintroduced to the populace as a form of entertainment. And we're not talking foam swords and cushioned mats--this is just like it was in ancient Rome. Now imagine a corporation (appropriately named Caesar's) that has taken it to the extreme and knows the best way to exploit all its members. Lyn lives in such a world--her mother loves being a Glad Wife and touting that her daughter is the daughter of seven Glads (though Lyn will tell you o...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Megan (the rated it 3 of 5 stars

Girl in the Arena has a good premise. A bit of dystopia, some Roman influence, and a mite of romance. However, (don’t you just hate howevers) the execution was a little lacking and the ending…ugh. To put it nicely, the ending qualifies as one of the floppiest flops of all time, in my very humble opinion. But Wait! I’m not saying you should give up on this book entirely. It’s definitely not a classic, but it does have some entertainment value. And what I consider to be a flop might not be what yo...more Girl in the Arena has a good premise. A bit of dystopia, some Roman influence, and a mite of romance. However, (don’t you just hate howevers) the execution was a little lacking and the ending…ugh. To put it nicely, the ending qualifies as one of the floppiest flops of all time, in my very humble opinion. But Wait! I’m not saying you should give up on this book entirely. It’s definitely not a classic, but it does have some entertainment value. And what I consider to be a flop might not be what you consider to be a flop. One woman’s floppy ending is another woman’s not-so-floppy ending, or something like that.

To be fair, this book is fast-paced and exciting. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy reading it. From the initial introduction of Gladiator Sports Association (GSA) to heart wrenching deaths and a disturbing final showdown, the plot of this novel moves at the speed of light. So the score is evened up, minus one for floppy ending, plus one for fast-paced plot.

Granted, this book does address some of the problems we face in the US and other countries. For instance, violence. You can’t turn on the news or pick up a magazine without news of some war or tragedy slapping you across the face. And it’s hard to hear sirens without worrying that someone you care about is the victim in need of help. As if there isn’t enough violence in the world, people then go see movies where heads roll and pain is entertainment. It brings to mind the French Revolution, when beheadings were an event for the whole family to enjoy. Well, the family can once again enjoy violence together by watching the gladiators duke it out to the death. Sounds pretty coldhearted, right? But when you really think about it, the jump between our society and theirs really isn’t that far. Lyn, the main character, details the evolution of the sport from backyard games to death matches between death-row prisoners to the bloody center of American culture. As is the true purpose of dystopian literature, Girl in the Arena points out a path that society could take, and makes the reader reexamine the world around them. I think that deserves five points in favor of Girl in the Arena.

Now on to the main character, Lyn. First impression: I like Lyn, she’s a strong, independent young woman who truly loves her family. But then she had to go and fall for the guy who murdered her seventh father. The guy she was going to be forced to marry. (Okay, I love a good arranged marriage romance, but I like them set on the western frontier during the 1800s. And I don’t like it when the guy in question killed the girl’s father. Although this is the only book I’ve ever read where that happens.) So the romance in this novel, that’s minus two points. If I’m correct the score now stands at 4 for and 3 against.

For details on the floppy ending, you’ll really need to read the book yourself, but I just want to say something about willing suspension of disbelief. Magic and all sorts of crazy stuff can be believable in a story as long as it is realistic to the world in which it is created. That’s willing suspension of disbelief. But the ending of this novel…it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t fit into the world that the author created.

The big picture: Don’t write off Girl in the Arena, but if you’re looking for the next Katniss, you won’t find her here.
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Jul 07, 2012 Courtney rated it 4 of 5 stars

So let me just start by saying that this is my first review on Goodreads.
Another thing I'd like to say was that this book, Girl in the Arena, was not what I expected it to be.

I started reading it a while ago, but I got a little bored. The writing style, to start off with, was a bit - shall I say confusing - but after a while, I started to think of it as rather beautiful. It wasn't always clear what Lise Haines meant/what Lyn meant, but I think that was the beauty of it. It was written in such...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Erica rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-like-me-some-ya

I was suckered into this book by it's fancy cover and what sounded like an interesting story line. Gaaa...

The story could have been really good, there were good ideas it just lacked the execution. I did like the letter written in the beginning of the book that details the history of the current day Gladiators, but it kind of fell from there. I think mixing the world of the Gladiators with actual current day things and people distracted from the story.

I felt like any time the story was about to...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Samantha rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian, children-s-fiction, summer2012, library-reads

At the second paragraph of this book I declared it amazing, but the half way point I begrudgingly trudged through to the end. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I just didn't care anymore. It gets three stars though because I did finish it; I cared some amount I suppose.

What stood out to me in this book was how well fleshed out everything was. The gladiator world is colorfully and completely drawn out and inserted in to our world. On the one, I liked that, but on the other hand I (for some...more At the second paragraph of this book I declared it amazing, but the half way point I begrudgingly trudged through to the end. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I just didn't care anymore. It gets three stars though because I did finish it; I cared some amount I suppose.

What stood out to me in this book was how well fleshed out everything was. The gladiator world is colorfully and completely drawn out and inserted in to our world. On the one, I liked that, but on the other hand I (for some reason or another) don't really like my books meshing with the real world. Mentions of Jon Stewart and Second Life threw me out of the reading zone. I liked the idea that this book took place in our world with the one change of the gladiator coming back, but I guess I just didn't like how it was executed. I suppose it seemed a bit inconsistent. Parts of the world seemed very on track with today, others not so much.

Another thing that stood out to me was Thad's unnamed autism. I really liked that it was just part of the book but didn't change the book (at least not too much). Thad's behavior was just normal life. My brother has autism and, to me, it's normal. I felt like this was portrayed very well in the book.

Those two things aside the book just didn't wow me. I felt like it took forever to get to the point of the book, and while I get the "arena" doesn't have to mean the literal arena I expected a little more fighting and bad-assery going on. Not so much though.

I'm also curious about the choice of dashes for dialogue. I'm wondering if it's just the ebook edition that does this of if it was the author's creative choice. Mostly it just irritated me, especially when the dashes were then used in the dialogue and you couldn't tell if it was dialogue or narrative. There are quotation marks for a reason.

Overall, Girl in the Arena was a disappointment for me. I felt like it could have been an amazing book with a great female character like in Graceling. Mostly, I just didn't care.(less)

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Apr 29, 2012 Tatjana rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: adventure, nope-nada-not

As seen on: The Pie Bookery

Oh where to begin? Yes I know! This book was terrible. I thought this was a self-published book at first. My biggest reason for disliking this book? There are no freaking punctuation/quotation marks!
Example: -Don’t you dare- I said viciously –this is ridiculous- I thought to myself.
And this went on and on throughout the whole book! I had no idea where the thought started and ended and when she was really saying anything out loud. It was to tedious to read trying to fig...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Kori Morris rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you're looking for a quick, really easy read, this is for you. If you aren't, don't even pick this book up.

This was a fun read. With a definitely unique plot, as well as a writing style I've rarely seen employed, and a messed up yet still fighting female protagonist, it was definitely an enjoyable book.

That said, there were a ton of problems with the actual world presented - although somewhat completely science fiction, with aspects of American society that would never be allowed today (and...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Sammy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-reality

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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