I’m a simple man – A lover of violence, deafening metal tunes and women with a hint of crazy. But I’m also a man of facts, typically if I’m going to read a book, whether it’s in digital ink or paperback it’s usually got to be non-fiction with an interesting subject topic.
Don’t get me wrong, there are tons of fiction writers who can do magical things with their words but I’ll never be the guy that cares about what’s going on at Hogwarts or that 600-year-old vampire that sleeps with a teenager.
Considering I am going to be reviewing a three-part fiction series I bet it sounds like this book is going to get a lashing, but that’s not the case.
Fighting the Storm is the first installment of the Tommy Knuckles Trilogy for Cageside Chronicles as we follow a pocket sized Mexican teenager named Tommy who is relentlessly beaten by his peers at school and through some sort of saving grace he followed in his deceased father’s footsteps to don the boxing gloves.
Everyone can relate to an underdog, if they couldn’t Hollywood would be in the toilet and Tommy is a fantastic dark horse that you cannot help but get behind and support. We follow Tommy through his trials and tribulations of the small-time fighter as he transforms from a boy into a man in an incredibly tough occupation.
The Tommy Knuckles Trilogy are literally like nothing else on the market right now, nobody is writing MMA related fiction, even on the sweet science end there is a large gap but these short stories will fill that void for you fiction heads.
In a day and age where everyone is making MMA-themed movies starring D-Level fighters and G-level actors that go straight-to-DVD because nobody watches them, this is a story that your average Joe sitting on the couch can relate to and a book I’d gladly lay down my hard earned dollars to see come to life on the big screen.
The author, Jarrah Loh, is an Australia mixed martial arts journalist and editor for Inside MMA Magazine who already has a book on the history of this fine sport on shelves called Ultimate: The Complete Guide to UFC and Mixed Martial Arts.
Being the Melbourne-based writers first foray into fiction it could be understandable if it wasn’t a ground-breaking effort but he is a brilliant wordsmith who can really set the scene and pull your strings to give you the right emotional responses at the right times.
This book is marketed towards young teens that enjoy watching men brutalize one another in a cage but I feel this is a book that a middle-aged housewife or your grandfather could enjoy because the story is engaging enough and easy to follow and when it’s over you’re ready for round two.
I strongly recommend going out of your way to take a look at this book, it’s a half-sized novel that you can put to sleep in a single sitting without a problem and they’re cheaper than a cup of coffee.
