Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

166 reviews

leahegood's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Summary
Elwood is a thoughtful, bookish boy growing up in the years following WWII. He was meant to go to college, until a cruel stroke of bad luck lands him in Nickel ... a place that threatens to strip him of every bit of stubborn idealism.

My Thoughts
Before reading this book, I'd read articles about the real-life reform "school" Nickel is based on. From those articles, I was braced for this to be a gruesome story that I was prepared to stop reading if it got to be too much. Instead, Whitehead weaves a story that mimics the tone of its main character. Atrocities are not glossed over, but neither are the terrible details dwelt on. Instead, injustice is highlighted in the quiet endurance of one young man. Whitehead paints a story in which his character presses forward in humble dignity and a sense of integrity that refuses to bend any further than survival demands.

Content
Sexual Content: R*pe and SA is implied throughout, a character considers fighting back if someone touches him inappropriately again, and r*pe is mentioned outright once.

Language: Words like sh*t, d*mn, and f*ck throughout.

Violence: The violence in this book is underscores, imo, by how quietly it is presented. Main and minor characters experience brutal beatings, sometimes resulting in death, but these incidents are never described in detail or presented gratuitously.

Religion: Elwood mentions attending church with his grandmother at the beginning of the book. MKL is quoted repeatedly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Racism, and Violence

Moderate: Pedophilia and Sexual assault

bootsmom3's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Murder, and Abandonment

carojust's review against another edition

dark hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

This is difficult story, especially knowing it's based on the real-life Dozier School for Boys and its hidden past. The backdrop is a racist, segregated South, as Black men, women and children endured unjust, fatal circumstances, while the civil rights movement began to find footing. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words are weaved throughout this book, as a guiding moral compass for Elwood, the young protagonist, who reminds himself that only love can root out hate.

Colson Whitehead writes beautiful characters, ones that you love and mourn as if you've known them. While their time in an abusive, corrupt, and terrifying reform school is somber reading, Whitehead offers moments of hope through Elwood's friendships, and a peak into his future. There are repetitive themes, but I believe purposefully so, to reiterate the lasting trauma of a "prison within a prison" created by generations of racial violence, discrimination and hatred. Assaults and murders that escape justice for lifetimes. Poignantly, the characters talk about the free world and their world at Nickel, how there was no fence that kept them imprisoned. 

I grew up in Tallahassee, and it was my first time reading a book set in my hometown and the Florida panhandle.

Give this a read if you're interested in Black history, plot twists, and characters you can root for. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

alacarte's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Bullying

ofaivre26's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, and Violence

marisample's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Hate crime, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Classism

pilicreads's review against another edition

challenging hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I found it difficult to WANT to pick up the book and keep reading, mostly in the first half. After the first half, however, things really begin to spiral, and the initial emotion and love you hold for these characters propels you in a panic to keep reading — the panicked hope that they are okay pushes you forward.

Beautiful, haunting, difficult, wrenching, and extremely powerful. To quote The Washington Post, this book “shreds our easy confidence in the triumph of goodness”. I think everyone needs to read this. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual violence

mle11's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Dementia

shannyoung55's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Racism, and Violence

Moderate: Child death and Murder

Minor: Pedophilia and Rape

elise_nk's review against another edition

This book is beautifully written but it is so heartbreaking. The trauma depicted in the book was too much for my mental state at the time. I’ll certainly pick it up again someday, but for now I cannot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Racism, and Violence