Zone One by Colson Whitehead
I love New York City. It’s why I frequently read books that are set there. I could go into all the reasons why but if you love New York City too, you probably know ’em. And if you don’t, that’s cool, it’s not for everyone. Obviously, New York City is not right now what it normally is due to the coronavirus shutdown. It’s painful for me to consider as I know the city has so much life in it. Human life yes but also the […]
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
This was a sad, hard book to read, full of boys not much older than my own being abused and tortured in the name of reform. It becomes even sadder when you realize Whitehead based it all on a real “school”. “We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness.” Elwood Curtis, who counts Dr. Martin […]
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
As always, I am behind on my reviews but that means that I get to pick which book I would review for my 52nd of the year (I had six choices). I chose Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys for a few reasons. First, it was probably the best of the un-reviewed books on my list, though competition was fierce. Still unwritten are Wanderers by Chuck Wendig, How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin, and The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3) by Nnedi Okorafor, all […]
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
My first experience with Colson Whitehead was almost two years ago when I read The Underground Railroad and was very impressed. So when I saw a new book by Whitehead, The Nickel Boys (2019), I knew I was going to read it. Once again I had help from the “Lucky Day” shelf at my library. Whitehead tells the fictional story of The Nickel Academy, based on a real reform school in Florida: the Dozier School that was open from 1900 until 2011. The story follows a teenage boy named […]
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
CBR11Bingo: Own Voices Earlier this year I reviewed Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad, which won a ton of literary prizes. I found Whitehead’s use of magical realism odd and a little off-putting. It wasn’t embedded into the story and thus felt unnecessary. In my opinion it detracted from the novel’s story, which felt like a shame. The Nickel Boys is radically different, though Whitehead again chooses a weighty topic as his subject matter. In spare and unassuming prose Whitehead relates the story of Elwood […]
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
CBR11Bingo – AWARD WINNER: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction AND the National Book Award This was not what I expected. Nearly everything I read or heard about this lauded novel focused on the unusual conceit at its heart, that the “Underground Railroad” we’re all familiar with from history was not a metaphorical railroad, but a real one, with locomotives and tracks and all the accouterments. Based on that I was expecting magical realism akin to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I was, at least, expecting […]
