Thrown

Publisher's description. A genre-bending work of literary reportage. The profound and the absurd come face to face in this extraordinary auto-fiction exposé, as a bookish young woman stumbles across the bizarre underworld of professional cage fighting. Unexpectedly hooked on the spectacle, she befriends fighters and chases fights, becoming ever more entangled in the macabre, blackly comic and ultimately heart-breaking drama of the octagon.

Penguin

Kerry Howley embarks on a quest for ecstasy delivered in an unexpected forum: MMA fights. This transfixing nonfiction narrative combines bloody play-by-play with philosophical inquiry, delivering serious punches. Welcome to the Octagon

Playboy

As dark and funny as anything I have read this year

Washington Post

A poetic portrait of a bloody American subculture, and a knockout of a nonfiction debut

O, The Oprah Magazine

The fight book of our generation has landed. Thrown is a fantastic debut

The Week

The most fascinating book I've read this year. The precision of Howley's prose reminds me of Joan Didion or David Foster Wallace

Time

Thrown does what all literature aspires to do - to bring us into a community, a universe, we did not know we cared about and in the end leave us shattered and revealed

Los Angeles Times

An intelligent, funny, and utterly captivating look at a surprising subculture

Buzzfeed

Nothing else felt as strong and smart and fresh and honest this year - nothing else whipped my head around the way something great and truly new does

Lev Grossman, Salon

Best book I read this year

Alex Massie (on twitter)

An exciting brand of nonfiction depicting the darker side of the American dream. An intimate, front-row look at two stories of hope, glory, and violence

Vogue

Mesmerising

Houston Chronicle

Truly gripping, stunning

Salon

Compulsively readable

The New York Times