Other editions of book Kung Fu High School

“[An] ultraviolent, dystopian debut novel from Ryan Gattis, the spawn of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Cormier.” ―Publishers WeeklyHigh school is brutal, but Jen B. has learned to pick her battles. Except the first one―that one is mandatory. At the Good Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King High School, aka “Kung Fu,” everyone gets beaten to a pulp in their first week. Getting “kicked in” helps Ridley, the drug kingpin who runs the school and everyone in it, maintain order. He's the reason that 99.5 percent of the students know some form of martial art, and why they suit up in body armor and blades before class.Jen’s life is savage but simple until the day her cousin Jimmy, a world-famous kung fu champion, shows up. Everyone at Kung Fu wants a piece of him, especially Ridley, but Jimmy’s made a promise never to fight again―a promise that sends the whole school hurtling toward a colossal clash, ending in an epic bloody showdown.Ryan Gattis’s dystopian satire, Kung Fu High School, is a cult classic in the making―a darkly comic, gleefully graphic, barbaric opera about loyalty, survival, and the horrors of high school, which earned comparison with the works of such icons as Chuck Palahniuk, Richard Price, and Anthony Burgess.

“[An] ultraviolent, dystopian debut novel from Ryan Gattis, the spawn of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Cormier.” —Publishers WeeklyHigh school is brutal, but Jen B. has learned to pick her battles. Except the first one—that one is mandatory. At the Good Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King High School, aka “Kung Fu,” everyone gets beaten to a pulp in their first week. Getting “kicked in” helps Ridley, the drug kingpin who runs the school and everyone in it, maintain order. He's the reason that 99.5 percent of the students know some form of martial art, and why they suit up in body armor and blades before class.Jen’s life is savage but simple until the day her cousin Jimmy, a world-famous kung fu champion, shows up. Everyone at Kung Fu wants a piece of him, especially Ridley, but Jimmy’s made a promise never to fight again—a promise that sends the whole school hurtling toward a colossal clash, ending in an epic bloody showdown.Ryan Gattis’s dystopian satire, Kung Fu High School, is a cult classic in the making—a darkly comic, gleefully graphic, barbaric opera about loyalty, survival, and the horrors of high school, which earned comparison with the works of such icons as Chuck Palahniuk, Richard Price, and Anthony Burgess.

Wear your gear. Bring your blades. Back your family. Fight for your life.MLK High School has collapsed into Kung Fu High School--where Jen B. and her brother, Cue, belong to one of two gangs still standing against the puppet principal and the drug kingpin who pulls his strings. Cousin Jimmy--a world-champion martial arts master of mythic stature--arrives in town after swearing to his mother that he'll never fight again. His rep precedes him and everyone's itching to see him "kicked in"--Kung Fu's brutal initiation ritual. But he won't break his vow and defend himself, so Cue steps in when things go too far. Soon, a surprise counterstrike sends Kung Fu spinning toward one final, raging battle. Teachers flee, students break out full weaponry, and Jimmy must make a decision that will brand him a coward--or a hero.

Wear your gear. Bring your blades. Back your family. Fight for your life.MLK High School has collapsed into Kung Fu High School--where Jen B. and her brother, Cue, belong to one of two gangs still standing against the puppet principal and the drug kingpin who pulls his strings. Cousin Jimmy--a world-champion martial arts master of mythic stature--arrives in town after swearing to his mother that he'll never fight again. His rep precedes him and everyone's itching to see him "kicked in"--Kung Fu's brutal initiation ritual. But he won't break his vow and defend himself, so Cue steps in when things go too far. Soon, a surprise counterstrike sends Kung Fu spinning toward one final, raging battle. Teachers flee, students break out full weaponry, and Jimmy must make a decision that will brand him a coward--or a hero.

Jen B's been surviving at the nightmarishly brutal MLK High School just like everybody else: by following the rules. She avoids the Principal. She doesn't complain. She's loyal to her MLK 'family'. And, like 99.5% of the student body, she knows one form or another of martial arts. When Jen's world-famous Kung-Fu champion of a cousin Jimmy Chang turns up, everyone wants a piece of him - including Ridley, resident drug lord and leader of the school's most violent gang. They all want to see the legendary martial-arts master defend himself during the school's merciless initiation ritual. Except that Jimmy's made a promise never to fight again - a promise that soon leads to the murder of Jen's brother and a bloody final battle that engulfs the entire school.Fast-paced, gritty and addictive, Kung Fu by Ryan Gattis is an extreme journey into high-school violence and the American Dream that feeds it.