A review by icoltman7036
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

dark sad tense fast-paced

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

2.25

Really fickle ideas in this one. Literally boils down to a gesture towards the past, almost like a ritual, a need to recognize the evils of racism and the US, without much discussion as to how that history can inform changing the future. Where MLK saw history as a spiritual process that directs towards a just future, Whitehead takes a different point of Christianity-- the reason to look back at history is to atone. To recognize sin for sin and to not rewrite the past as better than it was. There's a lot of focus here on who tells history, it emphasizes the importance of the Nickel Boys telling their story, which is shown from the prologue. Yet at the end of the day all the boys are doing is archaeology-- digging up the past, yes, but a dead past. There's no life-force in that history to change the present, it's just left there, waiting to be recognized.

Very strange treatment of racism from this book. Anyways I didn't like it goodbye