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A review by life_full_ofbooks
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
5.0
4.75 stars rounded up to 5. I read this because my 18 year old daughter had to read it for AP Lit and I like to read what my daughters read.
The only word I can think to describe this book is haunting. This book is based on the actual boys reform school in Florida called Dozier School for Boys that was located in the panhandle of Florida. It was opened in 1900 and was shut down in 2011 and in 2014 more than 50 bodies were found in a makeshift grave. It makes me sick to think this school was open for more than a century, it was funded by the state of Florida, and the boys were abused and tortured.
Mr. Whitehead does a phenomenal job telling the story of these boys and keeping facts while the characters were fictional. My one caveat is the jumping back and forth in time from chapter to chapter without distinction of time. I had a hard time figuring out the time period of the chapters that took place outside of the Nickel School.
The only word I can think to describe this book is haunting. This book is based on the actual boys reform school in Florida called Dozier School for Boys that was located in the panhandle of Florida. It was opened in 1900 and was shut down in 2011 and in 2014 more than 50 bodies were found in a makeshift grave. It makes me sick to think this school was open for more than a century, it was funded by the state of Florida, and the boys were abused and tortured.
Mr. Whitehead does a phenomenal job telling the story of these boys and keeping facts while the characters were fictional. My one caveat is the jumping back and forth in time from chapter to chapter without distinction of time. I had a hard time figuring out the time period of the chapters that took place outside of the Nickel School.