Fight Like a Girl

Trisha, 17, is a fighter in and out of the ring. When she’s kickboxing, she has a sense of control that isn’t possible in her chaotic homelife. Her mother takes good care of her, making sure she’s got a roof over her head, keeps her well-fed with an endless supply of Trisha’s favourite Trinidadian recipes, and protects Trisha from her father’s violent outbursts.

Her father splits his time between living with Trisha and her mother in Toronto and his other home in Trinidad. When he stays with them, often without notice, Trisha’s happy homelife is turned upside-down. Trisha’s mother has made it clear Trisha is not to intervene when her father beats her mother, and she doesn’t resist when her mother beats her. Trisha’s mother tells Trisha she protects her from her father’s fists and, in doing so, ‘earns the right’ to beat Trisha. Trisha tells herself she can cope with her mother’s physical and emotional abuse, but she isn’t prepared for what’s to come.

Fight Like a Girl opens with Trisha’s father’s funeral. Readers will instinctively feel sorry for Trisha, her mother, and Aunty K who’s visiting from Trinidad. Flashing back to one month earlier and learning about Trisha’s father’s abusive behaviour, readers will have mixed feelings about his death, as well as about how he died.

Trisha thinks it’s strange that her mother put her in the driver’s seat when they and Aunty K were coming home from dinner. As they get close to home, Trisha’s father stumbles out of their apartment building and is hit by the car that Trish is driving. Despite her father’s abusive past, Trisha’s overcome with guilt until she learns her father’s death wasn’t an accident: her family in Trinidad, people she knows and others she’s about to meet, planned to have him killed. Her father was escaping from Ravi, who failed to kill him, when he ran out into the street and in front of the car Trisha was driving.

Trisha’s guilt, confusion, and feeling that she should be punished leads to changes in how she fights. Trisha has used Muay Thai kickboxing to cope with her anger, often winning matches easily. After her father’s death, her will to fight back is gone. When the gym owner, Kru, pulls her from the ring because he’s concerned for her safety, Trisha thinks she’s being punished. Love and violence are so entangled in Trisha’s mind that she can’t see when someone is acting in her best interest, causing conflict in otherwise healthy relationships and friendships.

Trisha justifies the violence against her mother and herself many times in Fight Like a Girl. While it’s true that many victims of domestic violence justify the violence or blame themselves for the violence, Fight Like a Girl doesn’t go far enough in explaining how this behaviour fits in the cycle of violence. While Kamal does an excellent job depicting the cycle of violence, it would have been good to have some discussion about safe ways to break the cycle.

Having characters, whether victims or people close to victims, who accept violence as ‘just the way things are’ is a dangerous message to send, even if it is still the way many people think. Trisha’s neighbour, Pammy, takes care of her from time to time, feeding her and making sure she’s ok, but overall Pammy stays out of what’s happening in Trisha’s home, the abuse she endures from her mother, and the abuse her mother experiences at the hands of her father. Although domestic violence is still treated as a ‘private matter’ too often, there’s a missed opportunity in Fight Like a Girl to play a role in changing this way of thinking and to empower readers to speak up when they experience or see domestic violence in real life.

While Fight Like a Girl is well-written, the depictions of domestic violence could trigger readers who have experienced, or have been exposed to, domestic violence. It would be helpful to add a bookplate acknowledging the content may be difficult, along with contact information for local helplines for readers who find themselves in need of support.

Resilience and the complex issue of domestic violence are key themes in Shenna Kamal’s Fight Like a Girl. Reading this fast-paced and intense novel, readers will quickly align themselves with Trisha, cheering her on whether she’s trying to manage her home life or fighting in the ring.

Despite my concerns about the messages around domestic violence, Fight Like a Girl is an excellent read that is difficult to put down. It would be perfect for discussions on healthy relationships and as a tool to raise awareness about domestic violence in readers who are at an age where they’re still figuring out romantic relationships.