State Champ

by State Champ Hilary Plum

“A searing portrait of political & personal desperation,” (Andrea Lawlor), Plum's State Champ is a protest novel for our times.
A Jezebel Book Club Pick

A high-school state champion runner turned college dropout, Angela is working as a receptionist at an abortion clinic when a “heartbeat law” criminalizes most abortions statewide. In the ensuing upheaval, her boss is arrested for providing illegal procedures and the clinic is shut down.

Angela has never been either an activist or a model employee. But she gets why her boss didn't follow the rules. She decides to go on a hunger strike in the boarded-up clinic, to protest her boss's arrest and everything that's been lost. She'll draw on her the masochistic discipline of a runner, a history of self-destructive behavior, and a willingness to sleep on exam room tables (whose hygienic paper she uses as her diary).

Angela's protest is solitary, enraged, and a little messy, but it mobilizes a group of people around her-an ex who's a local journalist looking for a good story, the everyday people the clinic once served, and most especially a formidable anti-abortion activist named Janine.

Lucid, strange, and deeply metal, State Champ cuts through the political rhetoric to explore the relationship between bodily autonomy and real freedom. Angela's story is about what abortion access means day-to-day and how much we are-in ways that can transform us-responsible for one another.

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Politics, Feminism, Literary Fiction

222 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 13, 2025

Reviews

[Kim Alkemade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gloriously devastating novel grabbed me by the throat and never let go. Timely and prescient, this issue-driven story is grounded in the specificity of a hard-core narrator whose personal losses in life are measured against her one big win as high school state long distance running champ. The reader is brought relentlessly along when the narrator stages a hunger strike to draw attention to the cruelty of restrictive abortion laws and the imprisonment of the doctor whose example of sacrifice inspires her. Empathetic, enraging, and gloriously written, Hilary Plum has given us a perceptive portrait of our dystopian present.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

deranged! (complimentary!)

“this whole journal-thing, which I’ve actually worked really hard on, is like an intro to something so important it can’t be included.”

[Eugene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where's the red line, sheeple? STATE CHAMP knows. A defiant punk voice, fucked up and bristling from defeats, growls her barbed protest song, so vivid and direct you can't tell when its ragged refusals transform into the limpid melodic rill of exit music and fight song. Hilary Plum has composed an athletic, poised, and complex fury, knowing of the body and leavened with foils, to remind us how to take a stand.

[BiblioBrandie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was marketed as "ferocious and hilarious," but I found it to be neither. While I was initially drawn to the compelling premise—a young adult taking over an abortion clinic to protest her boss's arrest—the execution left me unsatisfied.

What should have been a sharp commentary on bodily autonomy instead devolved into a troubling portrayal of disordered eating. The book presents a fundamental contradiction: Angela stages a "hunger strike" for bodily autonomy while seemingly driven by her history with disordered eating. This raises uncomfortable questions about whether the narrative is genuinely exploring protest or simply rebranding self-harm as activism. Calling it a hunger strike feels disingenuous when the protagonist's relationship with food is clearly complicated by mental health issues.

The structure—a journal written in second person, initially addressing a former hookup who's also a reporter—creates an interesting intimacy but ultimately serves a story that goes nowhere. Angela is undeniably a realistic, flawed character whose rants about abortion rights are genuinely thought-provoking, but these moments of clarity get buried under the weight of an unfocused narrative.

Angela emerges as someone desperately trying to save her imprisoned boss when she should be focused on saving herself. She's a college dropout, generally angry and directionless, yet the book never meaningfully addresses her underlying issues. The ending compounds this problem: she survives her protest but remains homeless, aimless, and fundamentally unchanged. There is little mention at the end of the book of the doctor she was trying to help; obviously, she is not freed from prison by a young adult's "hunger strike," which makes the entire ordeal feel pointless.

The book reads like two separate stories awkwardly merged—a political protest novel and a mental health crisis narrative—with neither receiving the attention it deserves. The author's intended message about reproductive rights gets lost in the confusion, and what could have been a powerful statement becomes a missed opportunity. The only redeeming qualities were its brevity and the fact that it was free (thanks Libro.fm).

[charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

quite tough to read at points but mostly i was just mad and disappointed that i didn’t write this — the author is also a poet and ran for amherst…probs why i had my workshop hat on while reading this but really just in awe from a craft perspective. does some really smart and amazing things with politics and language beyond the obvious plot level. going to be thinking about this one for a while.

[Skylar Miklus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel defies categorization. It's almost a bizarre cross between Shadow Tag and How to Blow Up a Pipeline, or a desperate epistolary novel on speed. Angela, our narrator and main character, has a voice that is utterly devastating, urgent, and strong. I empathized so much with her struggles big and small - her college coach's pressure on weight ultimately drove Angela to illness and dropping out; she also faces judgment from people who call her "too blunt." (She gave me spectrum vibes, but that's me.) Angela is clear-eyed in her protest after her boss has been imprisoned for providing abortions that have recently been criminalized in their rust-belt state. She reasons that she can't do much, but a hunger strike is one thing she knows how to do. The way that Angela deteriorates as the weeks stretch on is reflected in how her journal (ie the novel) becomes increasingly disjointed. And yet, as she is writing in this survival mode, it allows us to see the truth more clearly than ever. I finished the book in two days, was sobbing through the last fifty pages, and have been telling everyone I know to preorder. In short, Hilary Plum has shaken me to my core yet again. Everyone needs to read this novel. Thank you so much to Bloomsbury for sending me the ARC; available May 13!

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s something viscerally upsetting about this one + some cool ideas but ultimately it wasn’t for me

[Hannah Zieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the story and the form of this. Easy and hard to read at the same time.

[Allegra Solomon]

super super good

[Mo]

Interesting premise. Interesting format.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To do something scary you just need to be more scared of something else."

This book is not my usual read, but something about it called to me, and I'm glad it did.

Angela is a past cross country state champion, a college dropout, the receiver of multiple DUIs, and most recently, a receptionist at an abortion clinic. When the clinic is closed and the Doctor who worked there is arrested for violating the new heartbeat law, Angela moves into the clinic and goes on a hunger strike until Dr. M is freed.

State Champ is written from Angela's POV during her days on the hunger strike in the clinic, so it is very stream of consciousness, and as her health deteriorates not all the thoughts are complete, or make sense, but they are so raw and visceral.

"I don't know how praying works. I guess people don't need, like, consent.

Next time, if there's a next time, I should tell her praying about me isn't praying for me. If you were praying for me, you'd be trying to want what I want. In a real prayer you'd offer to switch places with someone. You'd see it clearly, like god POV, where anyone could be anyone, like we all could picture a big switcheroo."

Angela is so unapologetically herself that I couldn't help but adore her. She felt like a real person who had messed up a lot, and struggled and was trying her best. I raced through this book is two days and if it had been longer I would have happily kept reading. This probably won't be for everybody, but I hope the readers who pick it up adore it as much as I did.

[Bill Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Passionate, messy, angry, provocative…that’s both the novel and its complicated-but-often-hilarious protagonist/narrator (the book is often very funny, not what you expect from a story about abortion, abortion rights, and an anorexic hunger striker). That the supporting cast of characters consists of mostly heroic women (with one obvious exception) and seriously shitty men (no exceptions) seems too predictable, but is probably just realistic (unfortunate but true). This is a very quick read, but it packs a punch…and, despite the humor and sometimes irreverent tone, at its core it’s deadly serious. I’m glad to have read it.

[Clementine · Rating 4 out of 5]

somewhere between three and four stars, but bumping it up because i think it's playing around with a lot of interesting ideas. i'm not sure it fully works - it's more voice than an actual character, and there are times when it feels like it's also trying to do too much. but it gets at the issues of bodily autonomy and the very specific, scary time we're in very well. smart and thought-provoking!

[Christina M · Rating 4 out of 5]

almost a 5

I enjoyed this book far more than anticipated (not that I didn't expect to like it). Angela's voice is so authentic and watching her recent life story unfold at the same time as her hunger strike is a nice cadence, particularly as her thought process becomes simpler but also more chaotic. I didn't need the end to be tied up with a bow but it was still less resolved than I would have appreciated. All around a great book about a difficult life, a free thinker, reproductive rights, and trying to do something meaningful when we don't know what to do.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the voice here. And this is really unrelated to the whole book but one of Angela’s things was that she couldn’t remember anyone’s name so she just gave them names that “felt like” their vibe and I found that immensely relatable.

[Catherine O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

So funny and punchy in a way that I couldn’t put down— but also such a profound meditation on what we owe to each other and the messiness of morality. Wow.

[Addie Lovell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal! New staff pick just dropped

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

finally.... the great American abortion novel

[Jeff Koloze · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike other abortion propaganda pieces written by closed-minded anti-life authors, this novel written by pro-abortion Plum not only chronicles the despair of an abortion zealot with psychological issues who goes on a hunger strike to support the killing of the unborn and the harming of women, but also illustrates a relatively fair description of a genuine feminist prolife activist.

Angela Peterson, the first-person narrator, documents her body’s trauma during her hunger strike to bring attention to the conviction of the abortionist for whom she worked. Halfway through the novel, the reader learns how futile her effort is because even the abortionist for whom Angela worked knows that her hunger strike is unnecessary, as relayed by the physician tending her during her strike: “I thought you should know she said that. Those were her words. It's not necessary” (94; italics in original).

Much more interesting is Angela’s psychological trauma, which supports the claim that abortion activists could easily go to the extreme of killing themselves since they have no compunction about harming women and killing unborn babies in abortion.

Angela is a sad sack of an abortion zealot because of many factors. The lack of a solid heterosexual family unit is conveyed to the reader two-thirds of the way into the narrative. She never knew her father: “I had personally wondered whether my dad was alive or dead, since he didn't exactly exist” (118). Her mother committed suicide when she was eighteen (140). Her attitude towards sexuality is typically self-centered instead of the mutual act of love which obtains between a husband and wife. Discussing her sexual activity with one of her lovers, she says that “what we liked about each other was fucking. Or fucking was the only door to whatever we liked. I didn’t mind. I think I was happy [....] Sleeping with other people was more to pass the time, test the waters, get out of a stupid moment” (76).

Angela’s other depressing personality traits punctuate the novel. She recognizes that “that’s the sort of thing that takes over my brain. Just junk, like thoughts that don't mean anything, nothing's happening” (25). She reduces her life to “I used to be a cool story but I fucked it up, the one thing I was good at, forever” (90), and for that reason “nothing I say even matters” (91). In talking with a reporter, Angela specifies her identity as “Anorexic slut starves herself to death for boss who would rather have fired her” (102; italics in original). The most pathetic trait is that Angela, who rarely mentions God except to argue His being, thinks she is alone in the world: “Come to think of it, no one's here to help me [....] I am here by myself. I am alone here” (109), probably because she is perceived as having a martyr complex, as when a fellow abortion clinic worker urges Angela to “grow up. Stop pretending like you're some sort of martyr for the cause” (114).

Moreover, Angela comes across as an intellectual empty barrel, and, if the maxim is accurate that empty barrels make the most noise, then Angela’s heavy use of the “I” pronoun and frequent introspection make her a twin to other empty-headed (and similarly verbose) abortion zealots like Ketanji Brown Jackson or Kamala Harris. Consider this gem of nothingness:

“It's not hard to understand. What I'm doing, it's simple. There's something better, something that's possible, and maybe you can clear the way to it because maybe you're part of what's blocking the path. Because there's nothing we're all not part of. Everything good and everything bad” (176).

The stream of consciousness mode of Plum’s 214 pages and the often ambiguous lines of Angela’s extraction from the abortion business into a hospital could make for tedious reading, but there is one redeeming feature: the depiction of Janine, who is apparently one of the leaders of the prolife protesters outside Angela’s abortion clinic.

Janine, a dynamic character who is well-mannered throughout the novel (but it is evident that she had an “angry” past as Angela had), is rendered as a fair character. She is not the standard anti-“choice” evil monster that other pro-abortion authors always classify prolife women, and the fairness of this character is evident in several instances.

Janine’s compassion is evident when she talks about why Angela is angry:

“’I can hear your pain,’ Janine said. ‘You're feeling their pain, and your own pain as a woman, and it’s filling you with anger. That's what you'll understand when you join the side of life. You can love and serve God’s creation instead of destroying the most innocent among us. Trust me. I'm not angry anymore” (45).

Although Angela tries to confuse her regarding abortions for rape and incest, Janine’s reply is rational and consistent with prolife ethics:

“What do you tell the young girls who’ve been raped and impregnated by their dad or their uncle?”
“That they don't have to suffer more harm. They don't have to harm themselves and their child, their suffering is over now.” (50-1)

Finally, Janine does not use the methods of other abortion clinic protesters from a previous generation, but the newer, compassionate ones of the current generation of prolife activists: “’We disagree,’ she said. ‘I respect that they're on the side of life. But their strategies aren't very effective or inclusive or loving toward women’” (147).

Such a positive depiction of a prolife activist is rare to find from an author like Plum who wrote in the Acknowledgments, “Endless gratitude to all who provide abortion care and fight for access to abortion” (unpaginated 215). It’s almost as though Plum is a prolife plant in the anti-life writing community who bucks the woke and virulently pro-abortion New York publishing houses.

Fortunately, prolifers can use Plum’s novel to assist their pro-abortion friends to realize that abortion harms (and sometimes kills) women, always kills unborn babies, and alienates fathers who want to love both mother and child by proposing a simple solution for people like Angela who are out-of-touch with reality. Angela claims that she is undergoing a hunger strike because “I’m like protesting on behalf of future patients who are ideas of people [....] I’m talking about the IDEA of these people but not specific actual real people in their own specific situations” (123-4; italics and capitalization in original).

Thus, to prevent Angela and other pro-abortion zealots from killing themselves, instead of focusing on concepts (political or otherwise), they should focus on people—real human beings who suffer with untimely pregnancy and reject abortion when they know that they have resources to do so.

This simple solution would mean that abortion zealots like Angela would have to work for a crisis pregnancy center instead of an abortion business. Changing their employment may be just the thing to give them a purpose in life which is creative and not (self)destructive.

[lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok, but I wish there was more of an outcome. I honestly don't really understand what happened at the end and I read the last 50 pages three times. Some of this was due to the writing style of the book, which I found highly annoying. The story is told from the POV of Angela, a college dropout and general all around pissy screw-up, who almost on a whim, decides to stage a hunger strike to protest the prison sentence of her boss. I can understand why the author chose to use run on sentences, and thoughts that changed direction right in their middle, and stories that went nowhere. The book is a journal that Angela keeps while staging her protest, and it makes sense that the further she goes, the more disjointed the narrative becomes. You are watching her starve in real time, after all. However, that means that the story makes no sense, and some of the points the author seems to be trying to make through her characters don't come across very well, or at all. I think there was a lot of illusions to Angela's real motives, like was she giving herself a public suicide? I think there was some reference to the people who might have better motives, but who don't really stand up for what they believe in? Who knows, since the point kept getting muddled.

I would like to read some of the book mentioned in the author's acknowledgement though. Those sound way more interesting than this book.

[Alyssa Burton · Rating 3 out of 5]

guyyysssss i haven't read a book in so long i'm embarrassed. idk what happened i started the year off so strong then became illiterate? and for some reason this randomista book is my grand return? anyway this book is very strange, a little funny, and ultimately devastating in all ways. it is the diary of a fucked up, not so likeable girl / former state running champ turned apathetic abortion clinic receptionist as she goes on a hunger strike nobody asked for when her boss is arrested for providing abortions under strict new laws. you watch her descend into near-death madness and the writing becomes a scattered form of half-poetry, which is not really meaningful in its content as much as the sad state of her thought process itself. the whole thing feels eerily ominous for OBVIOUS reasons and was absolutely unlike anything i've ever read. i think the point of reading it is the inevitable discomfort which is initiated by the unjust circumstances and maximized by the bizarre protagonist and her alienation of those around her. i enjoyed and am glad i read it but wouldn't recommend for those looking for ya know.... an actual story.....

[Chelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this one - especially since it tackles such heavy and important topics that I don’t usually go for in fiction. As someone who is pro choice and frustrated with the direction our country is heading when it comes to women’s rights, the synopsis immediately caught my attention.

The story is unapologetic and intentionally messy, told through the journal of a woman on a hunger strike in protest of abortion bans. And while I appreciate the urgency and boldness of the concept, the writing style made it hard for me to stay connected. The narrative feels intentionally disjointed (as it should since she begins hallucinating) but it left me feeling more distant than invested if that makes sense.

That said, I’m glad books like this are being written. Even when the execution doesn’t fully land, the why behind it still matters.

Big thanks to Bloomsbury and Libro.FM for the gifted ARC and ALC.

[Lonnie Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book.
I was hesitant to read this thinking it would be overly preachy. I’ve read enough Christian fiction in my day to be scared of fiction with an overtly polemical tone.
But, the whole abortion stuff is sort of secondary. The book is clearly unapologetically pro-abortion, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t, like, *the* point. At least how I read it.
The point is this stream of consciousness journaling style that takes you into the mind of this unlikely activist.
We see her processing her actions and the reasons behind them, how she relates to anti-abortion activists, thoughts on cockroaches, journalism, love, sex, protests, her past, and everything.

I could totally see myself rereading this in a couple years and really loving it, but despite enjoying portions of it quite a lot, I left the work feeling fairly meh.

I definitely do want to revisit this.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an advance copy of this book. Thank you

This book didn't really grab me, and you know what, that's ok, there are thousands of writers out there, each with their own style, and one size does fit all.
I thought this book would engage me since I feel strongly about the topic. In the description it says: "Lucid, strange, and deeply mental, State Champ cuts through the political rhetoric to explore the relationship between bodily autonomy and real freedom" I'll give it "strange" but hardly Lucid and didn't feel it cut through anything. I found it rambled, which makes sense as the character is progressing with her hunger strike, but the rambling left me feeling disconnected.

I am sure there will be readers who connect with the book.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book. I hated the narrator; I hated the writing style; I hated all the characters. Most of all I hated that it tried too hard.

The book was promoted to be about reproductive rights, but then it was about parental loss, then it was about the legal system, then it was about substance abuse, then it was about eating disorders, then it was about hookup culture, then it was about police brutality, then it was about journalism, and I think at the end there may have been something about animal rights? (I don’t know; I was flipping through the pages pretty quickly by that point.) There were too many ideas shoved into a surprisingly dull story.

I love a flawed protagonist or unreliable narrator, but I really wanted this one die at the end.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. Loved the very voice-y POV and Angela as our narrator and unlikely (and often unlikeable) hero. I liked that Angela was a messy person with a messy backstory just trying to do what she could up against this impossible problem — that felt very real and timely. Loved the reveal about where she got the name Rose from. Everything about running/being a former athlete was very resonant. I enjoyed how as the hunger strike took its toll, Angela's writing deteriorated from prose into fragments, but I do think this made the ending action a bit hard to parse — what exactly happened and its impact all felt rushed compared to the relative weight of events. The later chapters reminded me a lot of Open Throat by Henry Hoke, which I enjoyed as well.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Angela was a high school state champion in track. Due to some bad decisions and alcohol issues, Angela lost her way. Now, as a young woman she works at an abortion clinic, still trying to get her life together. When her boss, the leading doctor at the clinic, is arrested after a new “heartbeat law” has been passed, Angela decides to hold a hunger strike in retaliation to the arrest. She does this in the shuttered clinic, quickly building support by the community. Not always an easy read, as the turmoil in Angela’s mind is expressed in bitterness and anger but I ended up finding it a rewarding and timely novel.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is unapologetically pro-abortion in a way I found refreshing. It's also deeply weird. The entire story is told through the journal entries of a messy young woman as she stages an equally messy hunger strike to protest abortion restrictions. It starts on the unhinged side and gets gradually less coherent as the narrator's health and mental status deteriorate. There are moments of dark humor and also of real clarity and humanity. The stream-of-consciousness style won't work for everyone (I'm not even sure it always worked for me), but I think a lot of people will resonate with the concept of being so mad that you feel insane.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A review written by the mother of the author may not be worth much. However, this is a tour de force. The novel takes on some fundamental and heart-breaking divisions in our social fabric and embodies them, makes them personal. When I put this on my "women" shelf it is because there is so much about every American woman's life in it. And even if you feel like you haven't lived any part of early success then failure, a workplace that is designed to demean, daily encounters with tragic women's lives, and hatred directed at the self, you should read this book! Some people are trying to save others. You may be surprised who they are.

[Stephanie Douglass · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, wow, this was not the kind of book I was expecting, but I also only kind of skimmed the inside of the book jacket.

The main character, Angela. I felt for her and also felt like I didn't fully understand her choices, but that was okay because it felt like she didn't fully understand her choices either. And I actually really liked that. The world out there is unforgiving and it's easy to feel powerless and try and do something, and she wanted to try and do *something.* All her past-self introspections reveal more about what the clinic shut down means or could mean. I'll be thinking about this one for awhile.