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Round E - 1 August - 15 September - Reservoir 13 vs Klara and the Sun vs Headshot
By Henk · 15 posts · 19 views
By Henk · 15 posts · 19 views
last updated Sep 16, 2025 02:12AM
What Members Thought

Longlisted for the Booker prize 2024, a surprisingly punchy read 🥊
Divided in short sections, in a structure governed by the tournament of a girls boxing competition in Reno, many themes are touched upon in the 1 on 1 confrontations between the characters
You can’t train for a sport unless you believe you have control over your own destiny. The point of training is to change the outcome of the future. You train to change something you otherwise would have lost.
Headshot consists of short sections, ...more
Divided in short sections, in a structure governed by the tournament of a girls boxing competition in Reno, many themes are touched upon in the 1 on 1 confrontations between the characters
You can’t train for a sport unless you believe you have control over your own destiny. The point of training is to change the outcome of the future. You train to change something you otherwise would have lost.
Headshot consists of short sections, ...more

I got over half way, so I'm not considering this a DNF. I can appreciate what the author is doing, the match of character, writing and tone is perfect, but I just couldn't enjoy the reading of it. It had a depressing drabness that rarely speaks to me. I'll balance out my reaction by quoting Jonathan Lethem's superlative blurb for it, which bears zero relation to the first half of the book I read, but sounds like a Lethem sci fi novel I'd love to read. (I wonder if he actually read it or pulled t
...more

Eight teen-age female amateur boxers compete in a small elimination tournament. Between descriptions of the rounds we hear the thoughts and background on each girl. This felt like a series of character sketches punctuated by punches. Muy revulsion toward the brutality of boxing as entertainment prejudiced me against this book.

The story of a teenage girls’ boxing tournament - through each of the matches the reader sees the girls as individuals with their own way of looking at boxing and their opponents, their attitudes to victory and defeat, and what kind of life may await them after the tournament is over.
I enjoyed this much more than I was expecting, the approach is interesting and the prose is bold and direct in a way that reflects the subject matter. The characters of the girls are developed quickly and surely, bu ...more
I enjoyed this much more than I was expecting, the approach is interesting and the prose is bold and direct in a way that reflects the subject matter. The characters of the girls are developed quickly and surely, bu ...more

Oct 12, 2024
Erika
marked it as to-read


Jul 23, 2025
Heather(Gibby)
marked it as maybe

Jul 24, 2025
Kai Coates
marked it as to-read