The Underground Railroad

3.5 rounded to 4.

This was hard to read. There are no adequate words to describe the horror.

What bothered me was the writing style and the ending. It felt hollow but then maybe that was the point.

I had a hard time with the author jumping all over the place, past to present, present to past. I don't mind that kind of writing but the way this was written, there was no connection to the next scene, it just appeared.

The book was good but i think I need to research some of the symbolism as it is deeper than what it appears. It did start out like a lot of other slavery era books but I did like the journey aspects of the book. Reminded me of books like Huckleberry Finn or as the book stated Gulliver's Travels.
I think this book will be one of those that gets better with subsequent readings,
I liked it but did not love it. I would sat 3.5 stars.

The book was good but i think I need to research some of the symbolism as it is deeper than what it appears. It did start out like a lot of other slavery era books but I did like the journey aspects of the book. Reminded me of books like Huckleberry Finn or as the book stated Gulliver's Travels.
I think this book will be one of those that gets better with subsequent readings,
I liked it but did not love it. I would sat 3.5 stars.

Easily my favorite read of 2019. By far.

Why do I do this to myself, why? Why do I read books that are so hard to cope with? This book is infuriating, I want to have a magic wand to erase a large part of world history. I cannot rationally accept that something like slavery ever existed but the history is what it is and history doesn't care that I'm so upset about it. Sadly, slavery doesn't exist anymore, but I see racism alive and well every single day.
If I'm able for a moment to judge the book for its literary merits, I think it is well written, with clear and engaging language and a nice way to handle timelines and multiple characters. It also paints this magical world of the underground railroad as momentary relief from the horror of real life. There are plenty of point of views and plenty of histories to highlight the many different backgrounds of the many type of people involved in that part of American History.

I genuinely loved this book for many different reasons. Firstly, I know the history of how the States came to be (a little), but the specifics of it all isn't something I'm familiar with. I really enjoyed and appreciated a closer look into the life, and variations of a life, you might expect living in different states in that time period. I love the closeness we feel to Cora, in fact, I found her to be an endearing character. I really resonated with her struggle with her relationship with her mother, the sudden moments of anger she felt and admired how human she felt at times.

Similarly, the book struck a really strong emotional chord with me throughout. I really feel like this book was the one that made me feel the most this year.

3.5 stars. The main character was interesting and the premise was very different, but the plot was sometimes hard to follow and the time jumps made it hard to read. I was rather invested in Cora at the beginning, but less so as the novel went on.

This left me underwhelmed. It's not that it's a bad book - it certainly isn't. I was interested the whole way. I felt a little twist in my stomach and my throat at the end, so I know I was emotionally invested. The writing is good; plain, straight-forward, but tight and with perfectly strong metaphors. The narrative is gripping. The characters internal lives are complex and sustaining. Yet, something left me feeling uninspired. I put the book down and it was out of my head as soon as it touched the table.

Maybe it was that it was too plot-driven, and that's not my type of book: especially when the “almost caught her; didn't catch her... almost caught her again; foiled again!” storyline became wholly implausible, the escapes too narrow, such that it gave the more brutal, very real moments a bit less credibility. Reading this was like watching a movie, where you are always aware that you are in a movie, and also kind of thinking about what you're going to have for dinner. Something failed to captivate me.

But, like I said, it was still a good read and it's always good to remember histories atrocities through narrative, and to keep giving the victims of those atrocities the rich consciousness they deserve.

actually looking forward to discussing this with book club - if anyone else reads it

Initially I really liked this book. The physical underground railway caused me no issues. However, it all began to go wrong with the other divergences from history. Increasingly, his writing style grated. Mabel's short tale near the end was wonderful, but by then I just wanted the book to finish. The book left me cold and that seems wrong for such an important subject.

Historically inaccurate to the point of being irresponsible. Idon't care that it's a novel. It presents as historical fiction (even though it is only fiction) and people who may not be familiar with the underground railroad and that time period in US history will believe the things the author has made up. For instance, in the book the underground railroad was an actual railroad built underground by slaves (it wasn't) and there was a road called the Freedom Trail that was lined for miles with bodies of slaves and other African Americans who had been hung (there wasn't, though that seems to be some sort of disgusting dig at the Freedom Trail in Boston).

I wish I could at least have enjoyed the writing style, yet I found it to be as lazy as his research. His fondness for using gratuitous violence in place of meaningful action does not shock but bores the reader. While one is desperate to connect with the characters, they come across as one dimensional and boring caricatures of those expected in a book about slavery in the US.

Since it won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, I began this book expecting and hoping to at least find it interesting and decently written. I have read better books from self-published authors on Kindle that I got for free. I cannot recommend this to anyone.

This is by far the most intense, emotional, and heart wrenching fictional book that I have ever read. It is fictional so there are aspects of the book that are fantastical but I believe that this adds to the experience. Colson Whitehead does an amazing job combing many of the atrocities that the USA has committed against African Americans into the singular experience of Cora. Through Cora the reader gets to experience first hand the rape, despair, and heart break that white Americans caused among the African American community. I found the that the adjustment to new circumstances and the hope that comes right before tragedy very poignant especially considering current events. Throughout US history we have grown complacent when, slavery was not allowed above the 32nd parallel, slavery was abolished in 1865, after the Civil Rights movement, and after the first Black president was elected. After each of these events there has been a resurgence of white-supremacy. I have learned from this book and the events over the past year that it is imperative that we never stop fighting for equal treatment of all human beings.

Short review: Interesting concept, but felt forced. It was good that I had read this after reading a bunch of history on slavery, the civil war and reconstruction. That meant that I got most of the historical allusions. (Basically assume that virtually every plot point is based on a real historical event.)

My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/underground-railroad/

I think I echo some of the other reviewers here in that whilst I did find the story interesting, I also found it quite cold and impersonal. It took me around a month to finish this and given it's only 360 pages, that is just not normal for me. I just wasn't driven to finish it and had no real urge to pick it up. I appreciated the imagery and message in the book, however the writing style wasn't engaging for me personally.

3.5 stars–I hyped this book in my mind. And don't get me wrong. There is beautiful writing in this book. There are heartbreaking scenes. The best parts for me were not the actual story parts. Cora's tale is horrific. But the parts in which she makes observations about her life as a black woman, her experience, the parts that aren't strictly related to the plot–those are the gorgeous parts.

I have not quite gotten over Lovey either.

Phew! This was a difficult read. Not difficult in language or concept, but difficult because so much of it actually happened (although much of the book is speculative fiction, the treatment of slaves is a fact); is a part of history, and that is terrifying. Man's inhumanity to man. It would have received 5 stars had I not had to force myself to return to the horror again and again. An important book no doubt and worthy award winner.

Book Club 2017

Such a good book - I completely understand why it won the Pulitzer. The journey taken by people of color in this country is not a pretty one. This was a book club pick, and I was so glad we all read it and had a chance to discuss. This book will stick with me.

This book was horribly sad, it tore my heart open repeatedly. I don't usually read books like this but it was chosen for a book club I wanted to attend. I couldn't even get through the first page without crying. I had to put it down to rest my heart. I never made it to that book club meeting.

I know it is fiction and one major detail was changed but that didn't take away from the story. I know that the majority of the book was close enough to the real thing and the terror that people endured was just as real. I have read about the horrible things that humans did to other humans because of the color of their skin and it is heart-rending. I wish it all could be considered fiction but the sad truth is that this horrible story was a reality for too many souls. There is language that I like to avoid but in this book, it is part of the reality.

I listened to the audio, and it seemed like a lot of the Audible reviewers indicated that this story was hard to follow in this format, because of the jumps in time. I didn't find that to be the case, but rather I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight, when I wasn't able to flip back and skim again.

The narrator was really good, and clearly Whitehead is an excellent writer, but the style of this book was pretty detached, which I didn't necessarily like. (Exception: In the descriptions of violence, both on the Randall plantation and throughout Cora's journey, I was glad for the detachment of the narrator/author. It is much harder/more visceral for me to hear about or watch violence than it is to see it written on a page, and if it hadn't been in such a matter-of-fact way, I probably would have returned this one to the library without finishing.)

I'm glad we got closure about Mabel, even if it wasn't really satisfying.

I couldn't connect with Cora or any of the characters. I felt like there wasn't enough time spent on anyone to understand who they were. I didn't understand why he turned the Underground Railroad into an actual underground railroad. I don't know. I wanted to find something in here that spoke to me, that pulled me in, but there wasn't anything I could hold on to.

Cora is a slave on a plantation run by a cruel owner. The first time she is asked to run away, she says no. The second time, yes.

You'll never buy the tales of happy slaves singing around their cabins with their owners again. You'll never see a Confederate flag and look on it as a gentle reminder of the old South again. You will walk in the shoes of slaves and it will change you.

Interesting plot centered around good characters, but it just sorta peters out and the end rather than coming to any kind of conclusion. But then there's the big bugbear; I can accept a little historical inaccuracy, but this went a little to far. I had difficulty focusing on the narrative because I kept wondering, “Did North Carolina actually try and ban all slaves? I'm pretty sure not.”

Between 3 and 4 stars. The story of Cora, a slave's escape and journey across several states during the pre-civil-war era with the not metaphorical but literal underground railroad. I definitely enjoyed parts of this (especially the beginning and the end) and the occasional beautiful wordings, but the main character never really came to life, was lacking in personality development. Sometimes the narration jumped around, and that was disruptive. Either this book should have been double the length - become an opus featuring more adventures, more characters, more details - or should have had a tighter storyline more focused on the railroad. This and Homegoing have been dominating many of the best-of lists of 2016, and Homegoing - which deals with a similar subject matter - is miles better. This reads like a very negative review, though it shouldn't be. This book just doesn't seem to live up to it's potential and that's disappointing.

The mark of a great book is one that makes you think and reflect on what you're reading, where you find new insights into your own world through that process. This was such a book!