Scan barcode
twellz's review against another edition
4.0
The Underground Railroad. It has been a few weeks since I finished this book & I can’t stop thinking about it. Walking alongside Cora, a young black slave, as she flees her master and searches for a safe place to live. This book will transport you to a time when “Freedom" was not what most people would think of it as being.
“And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes—believes with all its heart—that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn’t exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.”
It made history accessible while leaving no doubt in anyone's mind how horrific slavery was. I liked Cora, an outcast slave, a critical thinker, and a risk taker. The brutality of Ridgeway (the slave bounty hunter) advanced the conflict, but many of the characters lacked depth. Although Whitehead portrays the Railroad as a Hogwarts Express with Station 9 & 3/4, the reality to some is that the non-physical Underground Railroad probably felt like a magical operation. Maybe if the author portrayed the real Underground Railroad, with the goodness of real people helping the slaves, the story wouldn’t have fallen so flat.
This book was a slow start & is hard to read as it jumped all over the place. But it’s message stays with you because, even today, it is still difficult to understand how our society could have been so cruel. However, white men have always considered themselves superior & entitled to whatever they want. In many ways I think we are still suffering the fallout from the Civil War; we continue to ignore the true cause of racial strife in this country while attempting to put bandaids on the symptoms. Cruelty is back in fashion these days, in speech, in social media and in government. Thanks for the digression, Trump.
“The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the freemen had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others.”
“And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes—believes with all its heart—that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn’t exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.”
It made history accessible while leaving no doubt in anyone's mind how horrific slavery was. I liked Cora, an outcast slave, a critical thinker, and a risk taker. The brutality of Ridgeway (the slave bounty hunter) advanced the conflict, but many of the characters lacked depth. Although Whitehead portrays the Railroad as a Hogwarts Express with Station 9 & 3/4, the reality to some is that the non-physical Underground Railroad probably felt like a magical operation. Maybe if the author portrayed the real Underground Railroad, with the goodness of real people helping the slaves, the story wouldn’t have fallen so flat.
This book was a slow start & is hard to read as it jumped all over the place. But it’s message stays with you because, even today, it is still difficult to understand how our society could have been so cruel. However, white men have always considered themselves superior & entitled to whatever they want. In many ways I think we are still suffering the fallout from the Civil War; we continue to ignore the true cause of racial strife in this country while attempting to put bandaids on the symptoms. Cruelty is back in fashion these days, in speech, in social media and in government. Thanks for the digression, Trump.
“The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the freemen had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others.”
elliejean28's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
daniellebird's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
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
3.25
mavemarie's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
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
theadequategatsby's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
onthedig's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This book was fantastic. The prose was rich and thoughtful. The mental images I got during this book hit me in my soul. I see the world differently now. It's one thing to learn about the UGRR in history class but this book really connected me emotionally to the history. I fully understand why this book won a Pulitzer Prize and why it recieved as much acclaim as it did when it was released. I have been changed by this book and I can tell it will be one I think about for the rest of life. Truly excellent.
jfaberrit's review against another edition
5.0
There were some great books written in the past year (I was partial to Moonglow by Michael Chabon), but this was the best book of 2016, hands down, by some margin. There might be a clever little novel out there that takes the idea of the underground railroad made into literal railroad and runs with it; this book is so much more by taking it as simply a conceit. Instead, we get the entire history of race in America (and elsewhere in the world), told symbolically as the stages of a journey, moving in fits and starts toward freedom and toward modernity, but never unaware of the continuing struggle for equality and justice that marks the present day. I never realized until I read this that "the State of North Carolina" could be a mental state as well as one of the constituent parts of the union. Whitehead manages to find universality in control, domination, terror, and struggles through anachronisms, anecdotes, and more, all while threading a plot with rich characters and momentum. It's masterful, the most moving novel of the year, storytelling and structure wrapped in one.
kmcfall's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Racial slurs, Racism, and Slavery
Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Torture, and Rape