Fight Like a Girl by Sheena Kamal

Content Tags: Violence, Disordered Eating, Fatphobia, Domestic Abuse, Child Abuse

This book is told from the point of view of Trisha who is training at a Muy Thai gym and also dealing with the emotional turmoil of her abusive father's accidental death. Oh, and she's also finishing her senior year of high school on top of it all. 

Because of the element of Muy Thai fighting there is an abundance of disordered eating (in the name of "making weight" for competitions) and fatphobia. The fatphobia reads to me mostly as a coping/defense mechanism for Trisha feeling like she doesn't have a lot of control in her own life. I long for the day when writers find other ways to show those emotions without resorting to comments like: "Sharp eyes in their soft faces. Soft bodies, too, moving like sludge through the hallways" (pg 195). In a similar vein, there were comments Trisha made disparaging the women who chose to be ring girls (or date fighters) instead of being fighters as if they were beneath her. I know these things happen and exist in real life, but this is a fantasy... the story is made up. It is possible to change certain aspects of reality to make them less harmful and damaging. 

Now for the actual book and not just the harmful tropes:

It was very captivating and kept me locked in for the most part. There was an underlying spooky/mysterious element to the overall storyline related to the unexpected and accidental death of her father and her mother's behavior afterwards. There was a lot of build up happening initially, but towards the end it felt almost... disappointing. Throughout the story there were vague references to Trinidadian folklore of soucouyants and her father's "other family" in Trinidad, but neither of those are explained or given much context beyond one or two brief descriptions. There was so much room to build those pieces of the story out more which could've made the conclusion stronger.

There was a lot of build up with a neighbor and friend of Trisha's, Christopher, that then doesn't really get any resolution or inclusion in the end of the book. I found that strange and a let down. And there was another character, Jason, that felt useless because of the utter lack of development of his character and involvement outside of also practicing at the Muy Thai gym. There's even one point where Trisha comments on how it doesn't make sense why he practices at that particular gym, but then nothing further is explored. It would've been nice to either add more to Jason's character or replace his involvement with Christopher who was already more involved in Trisha's life.

Overall, I liked the book okay and it had good representation. It had potential to be so much better though.

Reflective questions:

Did you guess the ending? If so, at what point?

I did not even come close, but that could be because the ending felt very disjointed from everything else that happened in the book. One aspect of it, I kind of assumed was a piece of the puzzle. But the rest was tied in with parts of the book that didn't get developed fully...

Are there plot points the book didn't address?

Technically everything gets addressed. How well things are addressed is the real question. I wanted more!