Arena - Karen Hancock

This is the version of the book I have, but I have to say the other one is quite pretty and I think captures the theme a bit more. Go check it out :)

“You forget how long I’ve been here. Five years. Five. I’ve been to every gate there is, walked all over the Outlands searching for a way out. I’ve watched my friends die one after the other, yet I’m still here, and I haven’t the vaguest idea why. Yes, I’m cynical. Hope is a temptress. And it hurts so much when it dies, after a while you learn not to let it in. At least as a mutant I’d be strong - one of the feared, instead of one of the always fearing.”

That quote is from Pierce, it is said about half way through this book. Oh, how he speaks a million ideas with just a few words. We've all felt like this at some point or other, haven't we? "Hope is a temptress. And it hurts so much when it dies."

I think this quote is one that sums up the book perfectly for me. It is about facing fears - sometimes you fail, and sometimes you end up somewhere you didn't expect to. We try in our own strength to figure a way out, try and take control. But it doesn't work. It never does...

What a book. I literally have no other words for it. I have read this book about 5 times and never fail to see something new.

If you haven't already, go check out my top 10 (which only currently has 3 on it... FAIL!!). This book has been my #1 favourite book of all time until literally a couple of months ago. I actually can not stress how much I love this book.

But enough about me. This is about reviewing this book.

So it opens with Callie and her best friend, Meg, signing up for some experiment that is supposed to change their lives. The only problem is that Callie is SUPER dubious because this is not the first experiment Meg has dragged her too, and this one is solely because Meg is interested in the guy. How many times have we all been in a situation like this?? In this situation I didn't know who I related too actually. Callie, the ever-questioning critic, or Meg, the one who blindly follows. I guess both. Whoops :P

Long story short, Callie doesn't end up listening to the instructions of the game, as she ends up being freaked out by some weird dude sitting in reception. Now that sounds like me!! She gets thrown into this 'other' world and for the first however long, instead of taking in her surroundings and figuring out where she is, she tries to figure out what happened in a literal sense. Did they teleport her? Is she drugged? We can already see from the get-go that our gal is taking the path of MOST resistance.

As she begins to make her way through this strange world with strange creatures, Callie takes on a motto that she has carried for most of her life: you can't trust anyone. Though this may not seem apparent at the beginning, Callie has had serious family problems and whether she tries to or not, she can't trust anyone for fear that they will leave her, disappoint her or hurt her. Not only this but she is also plagued with her childhood fear that never left her.

"Nausea clawed the back of her throat. The world spun and the gargantuan space pulled at her, sucking her toward it like a black hole. Desperately she clutched the wall beside her, struggling to breathe. Her vision began to flash, and she knew if she did not get away from here right now, she would die. Gasping, she fled back to the boulders and the willows, hugging her knees and weeping miserably. “I’m acrophobic.”

Isn't this writing style just beautiful. It captures you, take you in.

As always, the mighty man - or in this case super cynical grumpy man - enters the scene and tries to at least warn Callie about the dangers she is about to face. Of course, knowing what we now know about her, Callie doesn't listen and ends up putting herself in harms way, only to be saved by this mysterious man - Pierce.

We finally get to the point in the book where Callie listens to the rules and encounters some of the dangers. Trogs, for one. A trog is a mutant. Someone who decided to take this world into their own hands. By stepping through a fire curtain their features are enhanced. Some become abnormally strong, some gain telekinesis. But all become extremely vicious. They capture anyone, and capturing is more a curse than a blessing.

We later find out that Pierce himself was caught by a band of Trogs not too long ago and was the first person to properly come out... normal. However, his addiction to the fire curtain is a problem he encounters throughout the whole book. Right to the last few pages.

To skip the next half of the book, Callie, Pierce and his companions make their way out of the first stage of the Arena, only to find that there is another level, which is twice as hard and contains more danger. Who would have guessed?

This is where the God figure enters in. Elhanu. I cannot even try to pronounce this name out loud as everyone I know says it differently. But he comes to be a character that you begin to love and trust, even though you yourself aren't the one living out this crazy existence. Elhanu provides a guide, and a connection to himself. He says that he will go forth with these people to protect them, that if they only trust in him, he will show them the way.

Until this point in the book I had not seen any Christian references. And I think that is the beauty of Karen's writing. It is so captivating, it draws you in with the disappointment, the heartbreak, the tension and the joy when they succeed at a challenge. And it shows you God, reveals Him to you in a new way that I had never encountered before. In this book, God is portrayed as a friend that the group meet along the way and it isn't until later that they find out who Elhanu was all along. He was a companion, a brother, a father, and a guide. Someone who knew what you were thinking, things you were too afraid to admit. Who knew the depths of your heart and still loved you. He gave soft encouragement where needed, but knew when to just sit beside you and comfort you.

Until I had read this book, a soft, loving God had never been shown to me before. I had never thought about God as someone who wanted to know my inner thoughts, who wanted me to confide in Him and trust Him, even with daily things like my love life, my friendship, my uni work. I had this clear sacred/secular divide in my life. This book made me question this.

The rest of this book centres around this idea. As Pierce and Callie face their fears, they learn to turn it over to God.

Just lastly, I thought I would give a pre-warning. The ending is sad. Bittersweet, and if you're into this kind of thing then you may like it. But it took me entirely by surprise and it is one thing that I have never really been able to reconcile with whenever I go back and read it. Take tissues. Lots and lots of tissues.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did. I hope you learn as much as I did and that you just spend some time within the pages, learning and growing as you walk with these two lives.

Let me know what you think. Join the conversation. I've also linked the Goodreads page here so that you can go have a look over there too.

Until later,

Michaela.