Boxer Handsome by Anna Whitwham

 

Bobby was raised to box.  His grandfather on his mother's side and his father were both boxers and Bobby has been in the gym since he was a small boy.  Now he is about to have the match that will make or break his career.

Connor was a friend in those boyhood days but now he's going to be Bobby's rival in the big fight.  Both representing the same gym, one will go on and one's career will be done.  Days before the fight, the two have a street fight over the girl Connor loves but who is having a fling with Bobby.  Now the fight in the ring will be between enemies.

Bobby meets a girl who brings her brother to the gym to learn some self-defense.  Chloe is nothing like the usual girls that Bobby meets, she is more refined and she makes Bobby want to be better.  She will be coming to the big fight and gives Bobby one more reason to win.

This is a debut novel from Anna Whitwham who is an English author who was singled out as one of the Best New Novelists in the Guardian's annual listing.  The boxing scenes ring true and it turns out that Anna herself took up boxing in the months after her mother died a slow death from cancer.  Growing up she had been like the girl that Bobby and Connor fought over but after she had a child herself she finally began to grow up.  Readers will be transported to a world most have no idea of.  The action is brutal and the characters don't seem to be fully developed but caught in a world that defines them as one thing and refuses to let them break away.  I will be looking for more work by this author and I'm glad to have seen the boxing world from the inside.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.