Read it.

42 students, one island--fight to the death until one is left standing. Man was this a ride.

Out of the 42, Eight or so carry most of the main focus of the story, with the most time and plot:

Group 1: Shuya Nanahara (Guitar player--Rock n' Roll!, and ex-baseball star), Noriko Nakagawa (The girl Shuya's best friend is in love with), and Shogo Kawada (Scary looking guy with scars and a tough reputation). All they want is to get out of the game with their lives and killing as few people as possible.

Group 2: Shinji Mimura (Mr. Perfect at school--smart, athletic, and a winner with the girls), and Yutaka Seto (the class clown). All Shinji wants is to beat the system and save his best friend Yutaka, even if it means saving his friend from himself.

Group 3: Mitsuko Souma (The bad girl of the class) and Kazuo Kiriyama (The bad boy of the class). These two don't team up, but they're the definite heavy hitters of this game--they're playing it hard and out to win.

Group 4: Hiroki Sugimura (Mr. Determinator). Hiroki's got a goal and nothing is going to stand in his way, friend or foe.

Granted, the above isn't completely accurate--they're just the ones that stood out the most as I was reading. Just about every character gets a moment to shine, or a small sub-plot to themselves told almost vignette style through the main four stories above. Whether it's a few scenes, or even just a few pages--you feel for them.

I think that's what's the strongest about this book. Through the violence, the romances, the deaths, and the saves--I managed to care in one way or another about all 42 of the students--whether it was cheering someone who got what was coming to them, sniffling over the sad, or just flat out gripping the pages in excitement during the action and the tension.

In addition, I love how over the top the book got as it steadily headed toward the finale. From realistic violence, all the way to machine gun showdowns and car chases--it really covers the entire spectrum. Even the randomness of weapon assignments (and seeing who made the best of the 'worthless' ones) was almost fun at times (One student got a sickle, and the other a fork, and don't get me started on the kid who got a machine gun). There's a little bit of everything and I think some of the deaths will really surprise you. It holds nothing back.

I loved every minute of it, even as the students numbers counted down at the end of each chapter. The end had a nice twist to it, and I was cheering them on the whole way.

Romance, drama, friendship, loyalties, humor, and gore--Battle Royale had a bit of it all.

Highly recommend. <3