Reviews with content warning for Torture - The Underground Railroad

This book is excellent, but it's not a particularly easy or pleasant read. It's an unrelenting look at the myriad and downright creative ways that white Americans caused violent trauma towards Black people. Turning the Underground Railroad into a literal railroad was a creative masterstroke, though I wish more had been done with the setting in the actual story). I also feel like it's important that this book is set decades before the Civil War, because it emphasizes that yes freedom came eventually, but for many people like Cora's mother and so many of the Black people she meets along her journey, that freedom never comes and they die at the hands of white people and their system of pain and suffering. Although

Cora does makes it out to freedom in the fabled North

, this isn't a particularly hopeful novel and the ending is about as downer as I can imagine. I feel like this book is going to get embedded in the literature as a Classic, and rightly so.

Content Warnings

hannia222's review against another edition

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dark informative tense fast-paced

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

<i> The Underground Railroad </i> is a historical fiction that kicks off on a cotton plantation in Georgia with our protagonist, Cora, an outcast among her fellow slaves. Circumstances lead her to seek escape from the cruelty that the plantation holds, and soon Cora takes off on a dangerous journey away from the only home she's ever known.

At the beginning of this book, I was into it. Sure, the writing style screamed textbook, but the care that went into the setting intrigued me. At

the end of the 'South Carolina' chapter,

- I was still mostly hooked: the

medical experiment twist

shocked me, the dynamic between Cora and the other characters was at its best and I finally felt as if there were parts where the writing was emotive more than informative.

After Cora

leaves South Carolina

, the novel starts losing direction and it becomes unclear what anyone's motive is or what we should be rooting for. In

North Carolina

, though the suspense and the

'Freedom Trail'

did draw me in and keep me reading, I had no inclination of what Cora's plans were from there. As much as we are told that

Martin is trying to contact the Railroad

, the attempts felt shallow.

Ethel's chapter

was intriguing- I think it captured the superiority complex of white people who only helped slaves in their own interest and not because they thought slavery was wrong. Even though it was written more like a character study than anything else, I still enjoyed Whitehead's insight there.

Then we get to

Tennessee

and everything we thought we knew about Ridgeway and Cora as separate characters fall flat. I know that their was a power imbalance which would've made them both act differently, but their interactions felt completely unrealistic to me. We are repeatedly told what type of reaction they are trying to get out of their dialogue, yet I struggled to read the tone in it that was intended. Additionally I thought the tension and the pacing at the end of the chapter was all over the place: the things that were meant to elicit shock did not; everything seems too easy.

Lastly,

Indiana.

The way in which the story unfolds there just did not work for me. Pacing and the passage of time lacked consistency, and the conflict at the end doesn't compliment the plot earlier in the novel. AND THE ENDING DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! As much as it seems like Cora is

getting the life she deserves, the fact that Ridgeway suddenly breaks character and doesn't pursue her, along with the notion that where there wasn't previously a tunnel, there suddenly is

, the denouement was unclear and unbelievable. Don't even get me started on

Mabel's chapter

- it could have been omitted and the book would've been better for it.

Overall, I'm quite sad about how this unfolded. I was ready to relish Colson Whitehead's insight and in the end I just don't think the way in which he inserted commentary was effective. Though full of horrific truths and the potential to be a great piece of literature, <i> The Underground Railroad </i> just fell flat in execution. The characters, even the protagonist, were very one dimensional and I couldn't connect to them for big chunks of their stories. To quote Dre, "Like when non-fiction books are turned into movies, so they need to act a cast of fictional characters to convey what the non-fiction is saying".

I don't love the writing style but I am willing to read more Colson Whitehead. As much as I didn't like this book, I do think he has important things to say and I'm willing to listen.

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ashleyri11's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I am truly at a loss of words to describe this book. It described the brutality of slavery in horrific detail and didn’t let up when detailing the lives of black men and women who were no longer in the physical bondage of slavery, but forever in its grasp.

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stevie's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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feodora_isabella's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I started reading this book because of the current protests against racism in the United States (June 2020) and think it is a must read. As I white person I fully support the Black Lives Matter movement and I want to educate myself about racism and white privilege. I chose the right book to start with, because it shows America's true face and can help us better understand both its past and present. The books tells the story of Cora, a slave girl who flees the cotton plantation she has lived on her whole life. She is hunted down by a slave catcher called Ridgeway. On the way, she travels far and meets many people. The Underground Railroad exists for real in this book, and serves as metaphor for the country itself. 'Every state is different," Lumbly was saying. "Each one a state of possibility, with its own customs and ways of doing things. Moving through them, you'll see the breadth of the country before you reach your final stop. (...) Following Lumbly's final instructions, Cora looked through the slats. There was only darkness, mile after mile.' I personally think this metaphor is intriguing and works very well. You almost forget this is a work of fiction, because it could have been real. The railroad also has a mysterious element to it: nobody directly answers Cora when she asks who built it. 'All the railroad men, from Lumbly to Royal, countered with a variation of "Who do you think made it? Who makes everything?" She would get him to tell her one day, she decided.' The answer is, of course, the black people. The book is brutally honest, showing the horrors of slavery and the hardships faced by those born with a dark skin in America. Even when they had escaped their masters, they were (and are to this day) never free of the white people. It is heartbreaking to see that since those times so little has changed, that black people still have to deal with racism and discrimination in 2020, that they cannot feel safe. Please read this book. The subject matter is heavy, but so important.

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lena_and_her_books's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

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emmaslibrary's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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