Zachary's review
Battle Royale
by Koushun Takami
Zachary's review
Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
Zachary's review
rating:
I liked the idea of the story a lot, 42 students from this junior high school are selected to participate in "The Program" - a free for all killing spree until there's one student remaining. Simple enough. The book mostly follows one student, Shuya, but some chapters will be dedicated to one student from the class, and they generally end up dying at the end. This is all good and dandy, but the way the story is told becomes a double-edged sword. All of the students are ages 15-17 and thus, have the immature high school teen kind of language, which gives the book an almost anime feel to it. In the middle of this struggle to stay alive and to find someone to trust, the author seems to just randomly throw in little love scenarios between two characters. It seems that at least half the girl roster had a crush on the main character. I think this book would have done better with a more serious tone. The book is very young adult, and even the grotesquely detailed violence seemed ver...more
