I originally requested Those of Us About to Die from the LT Early Readers' selection for only one reason.... I like the movie Gladiator. I really, really like everything about it and have seen it countless times. I thought, oh, a gladiator book... right on!
The premise of the book is the culmination of a week of Games, held to celebrate the emperor Nero, which features Gladiators and other fighters, charioteers, animal hunts and prisoners to be publicly executed. The book sets up the event, then goes back and gives you the history of all the major players and then at the end, puts them all together in the arena. Sounds good.
From a technical standpoint... this copy is not marked an ARC nor does it have any of the disclaimers about being a pre-edit copy, however I found multiple instances of missing / wrong words in sentences. Things that spellchecker is not going to find. The book needed an editor. For instance "Nero did have a bang hanging from his shoulder. But there was no money in it." Or, "Rufus summoned Jurissa to his office. He met outside the door."
From a stylist standpoint... Some books wax on poetically about a character's features, Edward's sparkly skin, etc, but this is not that. Instead, it's almost devoid of description. Jurissa puts on the traditional Amazon robe. Great, what does that look like? How am I to keep an image of her in my head?
Also, a word about content. The book has a warning about the brutality and gore and sex. Okay. However, it also has scenes of spirituality and prayer. I cannot see how the readers who enjoy the rape and gore scenes are going to stick through the faith scenes. And likewise, anyone who likes the Christian scenes is not going to enjoy the brutality scenes. The book has a very specific niche reader and I am not it. ( )

I really wanted to like this book. I love this historical period, and it seemed well researched, but I just couldn't enjoy the writing, and I had no real interest in any of the characters. ( )

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Those of Us About to Die by Michael Woodhead is a historical fantasy following four young women gladiators in Rome. Mr. Woodhead is a self-published novelist, a writer, and reviewer.

The book follows Jurissa, an Amazon warrior who was sold as a slave to a gladiator school, Gwenydd, daughter of Eceni Queen, Boudicca who is planning to gain her freedom by racing chariots. Lei Ling, is a slave girl who escaped her master’s villa and is an expert user of the bow. And Khushi, a guard of an Indian ruler known as Achillia the gladiator.

The book also follows Emperor Nero, and Saul the Apostle in minor roles.

Those of Us About to Die by Michael Woodhead was a mixed bag, with several interesting backstories, with a very foreseeable main arc of putting all the main characters in an arena. Two of the protagonists, Jurissa and Achillia were interesting and well-written. The other two, Gwenydd and Lei Ling, were lacking in depth.

I have no idea why the author chose to include Emperor Nero and Saul the Apostle in the narrative. They didn’t add anything to the story, Saul especially. On the bright side, the book didn’t turn out to be some disguised religious pamphlet either.

The book is arranged in a way where each section is basically told from the viewpoint of one character. I don’t mind this type of story-telling, I enjoyed Jeff Shaara’s American Civil War series which is written in the same way.

Overall, the book does have a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, which I would think will turn some readers off. I don’t mind them; this is a story about a time and a place when these things were prevalent. However, much of the time I didn’t feel they added anything to the story and skipped many of them. At a hefty 440 pages, there was a lot of “fluff” that could have been cut out (this is, of course, just my own opinion).

The story is certainly captivating, but not as focused on the most interesting characters. The narrative does flow, and it’s an easy read which can capture one’s imagination. ( )

I find it difficult to find the real plot of the story. For me it seems more like character studies arranged into chapterlike sections. I found myself skipping over the sexually graphic portions (way too many of them). They really didn't add anything to the story in my opinion but then I'm not sure what the storyline was. ( )

Historical fantasy of four young women [one is an Amazon and two others come from outside the Roman Empire] who are captured to fight in the arena--one as gladiatrix and the others with different gruesome specialties. I enjoyed their various backstories and their training, along with feats in the arena. I wondered most of the way why Saul/aka Paul and Nero were doing in the novel, but all characters came together at the final combat. There was excitement and gore aplenty. As far as the author's disclaimer, I realize Rome was a libidinous society, but I found myself skimming over the parts involving sex. The author's retelling of incidents from the Book of Acts was fascinating. ( )