This book had so much promise, and it did live up to it in places, but unfortunately let me down in others. 
 
The insights into the American justice system were damning, and the real life inserts in the footnotes made the message so much more powerful. 
 
Some parts of the novel were so powerful, disturbing, and thought provoking, especially Simon J Craft's entries, almost overwhelmingly so. However, other parts verged on boring. The pace was a little strange. 
 
Also, some elements of the worldbuilding were unclear, obstructively so, especially about the game mechanics. Like why the BlackOuts? It wasn't explained why they happened, and they made no sense to me. I could understand not wanting to show the public some of the footage to keep an element of intrigue and surprise, but surely they would keep filming the players all the time for at least the producers to keep an eye on what they're doing? 
 
Additionally, I really struggled with the descriptions of the fighting scenes, I could never fully understand or picture them in my head. The writing being slightly ambiguous worked for the rest of the book, but was annoying in the fight scenes. It really disrupted the intensity of them. And the fact that the book ended on a fight scene that I had to read over and over to understand felt pretty anticlimactic to me, especially as the ending was very predictable. 

For how strong the rest of the book was, it was an underwhelming ending - I was hoping for some of the intense emotions I'd felt in the rest of it. I think Adjei-Brenyah was going for a shock, brutal ending, but it didn't work for me because I was just wading through the fight scene. And a bad ending really does sour a book for me. 
 
Overall, I think this was a good book that tried to do too much, that I enjoyed but wasn't wowed by. I wanted more of everything, as nothing quite felt complete. I wanted more from the public, more about different experimental prisons, more from the markers of the games. Instead, I was left wanting and unsatisfied.