Girl in the Arena
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
As a modern gladiator's daughter, Lyn and her family live by the rules of the Gladiator Sports Association. But those rules can turn against you. When Lyn's seventh father dies in the ring, his opponent, Uber, captures Lyn's dowry bracelet-and her hand in marriage. To win her freedom, Lyn will do what no girl has done before: enter the arena and fight her father's murderer-even though she's falling in love with him.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Haines's first book for teens offers an altered version of the modern world, with a public hungry for violent, on-camera combat. Lyn, the "daughter of seven gladiators," has grown up in Glad culture with a mother who has made a career out of being a Glad wife she is resigned to public life and the way TV audiences relish making sport out of her family's many tragedies. When Lyn's seventh stepfather is killed in the arena, rules dictate that she be betrothed to her father's murderer, the gladiator Uber. The spotlight turns on Lyn as cameras follow this unlikely, staged courtship, as well as Lyn's eventual trip into the arena to face her fianc . The novel's present-day Boston setting and pop culture references (designers like Galliano and Jean Paul Gaultier dress the gladiators) feel off, pulling readers out of the story. Haines's neo-Gladiator world hangs on readers' ability to reimagine today's celebrity-obsessed culture accommodating gruesome, televised fights to the death, and shaky world-building makes this a tall order. Ages 14 up.
