A review by baielleebooks
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This book is really encompassed by its visceral expanse, the breadth of its subject matter tracked with deep thought and reflexivity. The Underground Railroad acts richly as a piece of historical fiction, covering the terrors of the slave trade and racial prejudice of its time in its many guises; colonial legacies, scientific racism, egregious white savourism, the haunting psychic imprints left upon those who suffered, and those who ultimately outran these torturous systems. Knowledge was the most invaulable aspect of the novel.
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Cora was also a terrific protagonist. Her plight, her courage, and Colson Whitehead's rendering of her read so humanely. 
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A critique that arose for me was that, from the story's structuring, I would've expected the railroad to act more as a throughline throughout the novel. In addition, though the passages that captured the intimate worlds of varying characters rounded out the novel and gave it fuller character, there was the occasional tendency where they would dizzy the central plot of Cora's escape and survival, and gave it a slight feeling of delay.
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The Underground Rail's prose was bountiful,  lending vigour and stirring emotion to Cora's arduous journey and the world and people around her. Moving and affecting, this books offers a significant and wide outlook in a cultural milieu still ruptured by acts and systems of racial discrimination.
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