Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Underground Railroad

Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American author. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work, "The Intuitionist", and "The Underground Railroad", for which he acquired the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020 for "The Nickel Boys". He has further published two works of non-fiction. In 2002, he won a MacArthur Genius Grant.

"The Underground Railroad" starts on an evil Georgia plantation, where all anyone wants to do is escape. "Every slave reasons about it, in the morning tide and the afternoon and the nighttime. Dreaming of it. Each dreams a dream of freedom, yet when it didn't look like it." We meet Ajarry, stolen from her West African village and across the ocean on a slave boat. Her daughter, Mabel, flees the plantation and its disgusting owner, Randall, prompting a wild and empty search, and Cora, Mabel's daughter, our protagonist.
Cora and another slave Caesar are led down to a platform where rails extend into darkness and the North.

The novel is written in the third person singular and the past. The story is set during the 19th century.

The central theme of the book is slavery, and it affects people, predominantly black and natives. Although it was fascinating to read about it, it would have been better to read it in the first person since sometimes it felt a bit too objective and even a bit dry to read about the Experience of the people.

Freedom is another motive of the book. It is explained by which I live version of the railroad; however, since this is the only fantasy element in this book, it was pretty tricky sometimes to grasp everything else could've happened in real life then.

It is hard to rate this book. However, I did not feel connected with the characters at all and even felt like they didn't have any human features of the world as a personality; however, I do have to say that this book is insane research, and I would still recommend reading it just because of that however I do think if you want to learn about American history, it is better to read a novel written by people who have left during bedtime or even hysterical non-fiction books. Overall the story felt a bit lacklustre, And I would have wished to like this book more, but sadly I cannot.

Content Warnings

epersimn's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Content Warnings

whatannikareads's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

reading others' reviews helped me verbalize some of the weaker points of the book i didn't have time to verbalize bc i was so hooked on seeing how this all panned out. thus, i dropped my official rating to a 4/5 (but on storygraph i'm giving it a 4.5/5).

i'm rating this book higher than a 4 bc i can't deny that this was the first time in a while i've been absorbed into a fictional narrative. for the most part, i enjoyed the pacing, and when things became stagnant, i enjoyed the flashbacks to other characters' plots; i think it helped me to care about the characters other than in Cora and to tie up loose ends.

i agree with others in that there could've been more done with the actual railroad, as it's the title of the book. i also personally got lost a bit in the wording as well as the names of the side characters; i couldn't remember if someone was white or black as slaves obviously were given anglo names, but the author would name drop people from the past and i'd just gloss over it bc i couldn't remember their storyline.

i think it's overall a really captivating, well-researched book. you can tell the author took a lot of time with this story. it's hard to read as any slave narrative would be, so it requires a lot of attention, but i'm glad i read it!

Content Warnings

lkbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

rachbake's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

More...