An entertaining, empowering and subversive read that certainly packs a punch!

Told in two parts, before the fight and after, it follows the life of Aliyah as she finds her own path through very male dominated worlds. Her office job as a computer software engineer, and her path to becoming a professional MMA fighter. Being female in both worlds is not easy, and being mixed race she is no stranger to bullies and not fitting in. Having lost her mother at a very young age, a father that found solace after the loss of his wife in the bottom of a bottle, she was raised by her grandparents, all of which has left its mark on her, impacting on her life. Angry at the world, loneliness and not knowing where she belongs she finds herself inside a gym and it is through the training and fighting that brings her a feeling of empowerment she has never had before.

We first meet Aliyah a month before fight night and we follow her as she pushes her whole body and mind to its limits, juggling work with the gruelling workouts and training. All in preparation for the biggest night of her life. The second part is post-fight, a fight that has left her with a traumatic brain injury. An injury that has a massive impact on her life, having far reaching impacts. This part is also told in the first person perspective so you find yourself inside Aliyah’s head as she deals with the aftermath of the fight.

You don’t need to be a fan or have any knowledge of MMA to read this, everything you need to know is right there in the book. This book is about one woman who is holding her own in two very male dominated environments, sexism, racism, mental health and invisible illness.

Aliyah is a fantastic protagonist who is so well fleshed out she reads like non-fiction, she is believable as well as likeable and you cannot help but feel empathetic towards her. Especially in the latter half, the after the fight part, as she battles with her brain injury and mental health. Her injury is brilliantly written, realistic and is a credit to the author. The fight scene is also spot on. I am a fan of MMA but have no technical knowledge or experience but I could literally see the fight happening right before my eyes.

This book isn’t so much as a book about fighting, it is more so a book about not fitting in, sexism, mental health and invisible illnesses, the stigma that is still attached to mental health. About living with an illness that no one can see, an illness that because it is not visible is either not real or inconsequential. This book is a massive success in highlighting the inner battles hundreds of people battle everyday, and it certainly leaves you with pause for thought.

MMA is fast becoming a mainstream sport with more and more women rising to the top but as of yet not a setting for fictional novels or characters so I knew as soon as I spotted it, it was going to be a must read for me and I was not disappointed! Even if I didn’t like MMA it still would have been a great read. One that will appeal to a wide range of readers regardless of age, sex or fans of the sport.

Girl Fighter was published back in December 2017 and is currently available to read for free via Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited so grab a copy now, you won’t regret it!

A big thank you to the author Cyan Night, publishers Cameron Publicity & Marketing Ltd and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest and independent review.

So disappointing - this had a lot of promise, but was ultimately bad on several levels. I was interested to read about this character: Aliyah is from a mixed Kazakh-Chinese background, grew up in Australia and now lives in London, and is an MMA fighter as well as having another successful job. She fights racism and sexism at work and during training. Sounds interesting, right?

Unfortunately there are two problems: prose and patriarchy. The prose is just bad. All of Aliyah’s interesting background is conveyed in one massive, confusing infodump prologue. There are also frequent point-of-view errors.

Then the misogyny. I hoped that a book about a female fighter would have positive representations of women, and when a girly blonde woman appeared in Aliyah’s otherwise all-male training class I thought - yes! Lesbian love story! Or at least some sisterhood. But no. The blonde girl is wearing makeup and doesn’t mind the boys looking at her, so of course she’s a silly bitch and Aliyah is vastly superior. No thanks! I still want to read a book about a female MMA fighter, but this isn’t it.

Night picked the perfect format to tell this story; the first part of the book is the weeks coming up to the fight, and the second part details Aliyah’s life after the fight. What I really appreciated was the direct focus this book has, it does exactly what the blurb states and doesn’t go off on a tangent at any point, making every page an interesting one!

Aliyah came across as a very likeable character, and more importantly, a believable one. This entire novel could easily be placed in the non-fiction category, that’s how much I believed in it and connected with it emotionally. To the outside word, Aliyah appears very closed off, but, as the reader, you are privy to her inner thoughts and the whole picture of her life and so you are able to offer understanding and empathy, where her work colleagues could not. This is a nice reflection of reality, because you cannot see hidden injuries, such as brain trauma, and this is an issue in society today, just because you cannot see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Aliyah’s life is very much compartmentalised into two boxes, work and fighting – however, her life is anything but straight forward. After the fight, Night’s portrayal of Aliyah’s injury was very well done, it wasn’t over-written and this, again, allows the reader to believe in the story. You are further engaged in this novel because in the second part, the narration switches from third person to first person and this allows you to experience first-hand the aftermath of the trauma.

When deciding to read this novel, it may help if you have an interest in MMA but it isn’t essential. This novel isn’t laced with fighting, yes, the cage fight is detailed, but I’d say there are only two incidences that are a bit brutal to read. However, Girl Fighter is Aliyah’s journey, coming to terms with her injury and having to re-evaluate her life – a coming-of-age story, if you like, encompassing themes of: women in sport (MMA), brain trauma, and psychology. And for that reason, it may appeal to a wider reading audience.

I really enjoyed this novel, and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to read it. Without hesitation, I would recommend Girl Fighter.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

Girl Fighter by Cyan Night is the story of Aliyah, a computer engineer turned cage fighter (so basically a woman in a man’s world x2). Girl Fighter is set in London, but Aliyah is from Australia with a Han Chinese father and a mom who was a Muslim from Kazakhstan. Aliyah loses her mom young and then is mostly raised by her grandparents as her father descends into alcoholism. Girl Fighter touches on stereotypes of many kinds, and my heart broke for Aliyah as the book went on.

This was a super-fast read and I flew through the pages. I know nothing about MMA, cage fighting, Muay Thai, etc. but I found this book fascinating. Everything is explained with such great detail so that the reader can understand exactly what is going on at all points of the novel. While a lot of detail can be tedious in my opinion, it worked in this book as a reader knowing nothing about fighting.

My only real issues with this book were that I found the writing to be a bit choppy at times, and there were times the POV would slip from Aliyah to another character in the middle of a paragraph and then back again. This may have been a conscious decision by Cyan Night, but I found it frustrating at times as I like my POV changes to be very clear and orderly. Other than those two things I was perfectly happy with this book.

Final Thought: I think it is so cool that Night wrote about something she knows; if you read her author profile it sounds like she is an extremely interesting woman. She has extensive knowledge in martial arts, and she has traveled a ton. This is a debut novel and I would definitely be interested in reading whatever she writes next.

Girl Fighter in 3-ish words: Memorable, Smart & Honest.