Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

20 reviews

thecriticalreader's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

1.25

Since I enjoyed Colson Whitehead’s book Harlem Shuffle, I decided to pick up arguably his most famous novel, The Underground Railroad, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. 

 

Blurb: 

Cora is an enslaved field worker at the Randall Plantation in Georgia, a place of hellish brutality and cruelty. She and a fellow slave named Caesar decide to make their escape using the underground railroad, which consists of an inconsistent and ever-changing network of train tracks and locomotives. The book follows Cora as she uses the railroad to travel to different states, each with its own laws and philosophies regarding race and slavery, all the while fleeing from the slavecatchers who hunt her down with a rabid intensity. 

 

Review:

When I picked up The Underground Railroad, I hoped for an engaging story with characters I could root for and an interesting, original exploration into slavery, race, and America. Unfortunately, I got neither of these things. 

 

Before diving into my problems with the book, I want to praise Whitehead’s writing. Each sentence is carefully crafted for maximum effect, and while sometimes I cringed a bit at certain lines that read as too heavy-handed, others struck me as poignant and profound.

 

Since Whitehead spends so much of the relatively short book having the main character encounter different places and scenarios as well as switching the perspective to other characters, Cora felt underdeveloped. Cora and the other characters serve more as a vehicle through which Whitehead can explore his ideas rather than real people, so at a certain point I stopped caring about the narrative as a whole. The villains of the story were bizarre and unbelievable, which is not ideal in a story about slavery—the best stories about slavery show enough of the white oppressors’ humanity for readers to understand what forces corrupted them, while refusing to forgive or excuse their immoral actions. I might not have minded the underdeveloped characters if he had tackled his themes and ideas in an original and deep manner, but that was not the case.

 

The Underground Railroad provides an alternate version of United States history. Almost all of the events, ideas, philosophies, and circumstances it contains do show up throughout US history, but he warps events, geographies, and timelines so that Cora faces what feels like nearly every major race-based attack on black people and learns about every major racist philosophy in the span of a few years. It read as if Whitehead wanted to write a book about slavery, but he wanted to be original about it. So, he used an interesting but half-baked premise to cram hundreds of years of black oppression into one book, neglecting meaningful characterization in the process. Instead of exploring the nuances of race relations and the American identity, his mishmash of horrors felt surface-level because he tried to tackle so many things at once. I think that this book may have been better as a series of short stories, where he could take the premise of each section and flesh it out in a Twilight Zone-esque narrative without having to worry about connecting everything or writing complex, sympathetic characters. 

 

Ultimately, the payoff of this book did not come close to justifying the book’s strange contrivances. The idea of a literal underground railroad—built in a world with nineteenth-century technology—is absolutely ludicrous. However, I was willing to overlook it if it allowed Whitehead to say something important or interesting. Unfortunately, the opposite is true and I worry that some readers will have the wrong takeaways from The Underground Railroad. Readers with a very rudimentary knowledge of American history might take a lot of the book at face value, thus gaining a warped and incorrect understanding of US history. Other readers who know enough to understand that Whitehead is condensing the narrative and switching things around, but who cannot tell exactly where he is doing so, might assume that part of the fictionalization is him exaggerating the horrors of slavery, especially since slavery’s cruelty is easy to dismiss as fictional unless one knows better. The best-case scenario is that someone without extensive knowledge of American history reads his book as a fictional introduction to some of the basic themes of slavery and race in America and use it as a launching point to explore the factual versions of these events. 

 

In theory, someone who knows enough about American history to pinpoint exactly when, where, and how Whitehead manipulates events should stand to gain more from this book, but unfortunately the only lesson I “learned” was that racism has corrupted every aspect of America’s past, present, and future—an idea that anyone who has studied African American history will have already encountered in more complexity, emotion, and detail in other texts. Left without anything to grab hold of, I ended the book annoyed at the underdeveloped nature of the premise, characters, and plot.

 

 

The Run-Down: 

You will probably like The Underground Railroad if:

·      You are looking for an introduction to the main themes and ideas of African American studies through a fictionalized, alternative history narrative.

·      You don’t mind a book sacrificing character development or believability for the sake of a unique premise.

 

You might not like The Underground Railroad if:

·      You want to read a character-centered story with complex, highly-developed protagonists and villains.

·      You are looking for a historically accurate work of historical fiction.

·      You dislike dark, violent stories .

 

A Similar (but much better) Book: 

Kindred by Octavia Butler. Similarities between these books include:

·      Stories with black enslaved protagonists in antebellum America

·      Use of fantasy (Kindred) or alternative history elements (The Underground Railroad) to explore themes of race and slavery in America

·      Exploration of how slavery affects America’s past, present, and future

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Child abuse, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Kidnapping, Racial slurs, Violence, Rape, Grief, Confinement, Hate crime, Sexual assault, Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Torture, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Pedophilia, Abandonment, Sexual violence, and Trafficking

Moderate: Blood, Classism, Panic attacks/disorders, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Ableism, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Gun violence, and Misogyny

Minor: Bullying, Chronic illness, Suicide, and Alcohol

vedpears's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Wow. What an incredible book. The material is extremely somber and heartwrenching and a consolidation of a great many horrors that real people were forced to endure. 
I truly wish that the railroad aspect wasn't written so literally - unfortunately, I question if it does a disservice to the subject. I know too many people of different backgrounds who are now admitting that they think that "it wasn't as bad as -they- say it was". 
I also wish the ending was a bit more concrete, but perhaps that is fine because the ramifications of slavery in the USA are still present and the disparity between black and white Americans is far too great, still - the story isn't concretely done yet in real life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Police brutality, Trafficking, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Blood, Sexual violence, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Slavery, Violence, Body horror, Sexual assault, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Rape, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Excrement, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Vomit, Abandonment, Medical content, Suicide, Child abuse, and Infidelity

maeverose's review

challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual assault, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, Stalking, Violence, Racism, Murder, and Genocide

Moderate: Slavery, Racial slurs, Torture, Colonisation, Child death, Abandonment, and Confinement

Minor: Sexual content and Animal cruelty

jayecard's review against another edition

dark informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Trafficking, and Slavery

Moderate: Sexual assault, Animal cruelty, Sexual violence, Rape, Child death, Suicide, Confinement, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Miscarriage, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Medical trauma, Colonisation, and Genocide

errigal_m's review

adventurous dark emotional reflective medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, and Gore

lucinotlucy's review

adventurous dark sad 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Abandonment, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Trafficking, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Confinement, Genocide, Torture, Child abuse, Slavery, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Misogyny, Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, and Grief

kristensandiego's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Colonisation, Body horror, Death, Violence, Torture, Slavery, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Racism, Murder, Medical trauma, Mass/school shootings, and Child death

Moderate: Grief, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence

carisamarie's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Abandonment, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Racism, Rape, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Trafficking, War, Vomit, and Xenophobia

whatannikareads's review

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!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, and Xenophobia

mari_ne's review

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Murder, Racism, and Slavery

Minor: Sexual violence, Rape, and Fire/Fire injury