The Daughters of America finals boxing tournament in Reno takes place over a couple of days where female teenage fighters gather to see who’s the best boxer in their class.
Considering I have no real interest in boxing, I oddly tend to enjoy quite a lot of boxing media - movies, games, etc. I don’t think I’ve ever read a boxing novel before though but unfortunately I wasn’t as taken with Rita Bullwinkel’s novel Headshot.
The novel is divided up into the various matches, with the contenders knocking each other out until we get to the remaining two. And, weirdly, instead of building up the tension as the fighters drop out and we get to the finale, the story has the opposite effect where the opening match between Artemis Victor and Andi Taylor is by far the most exciting and the last match is briefly described and forgettable - almost as if it’s irrelevant.
Bullwinkel takes you into each fighter’s life, showing their past and future, jumping back and forth between both and the present where they’re throwing punches. It’s an effective way of getting the reader more invested in the characters and making the novel more interesting. At least, if the characters themselves are interesting, which Artemis and Andi were, but the other six were not. I found the other fighters’ characterisation not to be as sharply written or their stories especially compelling to read about. The Lang cousins in particular were quite dull.
Bullwinkel’s prose is good and she clearly knows a few things about this sport so I learned a bit about boxing like why certain stances and practices are adopted. It’s amusing to me at least that the author’s name is Bullwinkel and the most famous boxing character is called Rocky - Rocky and Bullwinkel, geddit?
Despite the strong start, Headshot quickly devolves into a dull narrative about non-characters that doesn’t go anywhere or leave much of an impression behind - not recommended for anyone after a quality boxing book.
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