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waffel113's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
If he had been less tired he might have recognized the name from a story he heard once when he was young, about a boy who liked to read adventure stories in the kitchen, but it eluded him. He was hungry and they served all day, and that was enough.
In 2022 I took a flyer on Colson Whitehead's then-most recent novel, Harlem Shuffle and was instantly won over by his prose and unshaking command of character and place. That was a crime novel set in 1960s Harlem, focusing on a striver who gets wrapped up in the underworld and grapples with the repercussions of his crime-aided climb up the ladder and having wicked fun with the genre's conventions. By sharp contrast, 2019's The Nickel Boys - Whitehead's second Pulitzer Prize winner, soon to be released as a major motion picture - is a stark, primal howl into the void that is the legacy of American racism. Based on the true story of the Dozier Academy for Boys, the novel is a confirmation of Whitehead as one of our greatest, most vital living authors, a prodigious talent no matter the environs he situates himself in.
In the 2010s, Elwood Curtis is a successful business owner in New York City who finds himself confronted with his past when archaeology students in Florida unearth a hidden cemetery with dozens of unidentified bodies on the grounds of Nickel Academy, an infamous reformatory school in Florida, and finds himself compelled to confront his past. In the 1960s, Elwood was sent there after hitching a ride to college with a man who had stolen a car, and the bulk of the story details his life in Nickel, trying to retain his dignity in the face of the injustice inflicted on him in the example of Dr. Martin Luther King. There, he meets another young man named Curtis who challenges his principles; to Curtis, a second-time inmate of the Academy, Elwood is worse than naive. It's the friendship and tension that develops between the two that drives the book towards a shocking climax that reframes everything we thought we knew beforehand.
The thing that's going to haunt me the most about this book, I think, is how pervasive the aura of sheer dread that Whitehead conjures is. You know that horrible things are going to befall Elwood as soon as his ride is pulled over, and he spares very few details once he's inside the Academy's walls. And what makes it all the worse is that Whitehead didn't invent a thing: every single horror he depicts in the novel is torn straight from the history books, from the White House on down. There was one chapter that unsettled me so thoroughly I had to set the book aside until today, where I finished it all in one go on my flight to Dallas. The cumulative effect of this is twofold: the cruelties that are inflicted on Elwood are compounded and amplified by the knowledge that, while Whitehead's plot is an invention, all of this really happened to countless young boys in the not-too-distant past. I don't mean to be flippant, but especially after the events of this past Tuesday, a book like The Nickel Boys, on top of being a brilliant work of fiction, is a visceral reminder of how deeply racism is woven into the fabric of American life. The proof of that is just beneath our feet, but novels like these give the dead a voice. We would do well to listen.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, and Torture
mollief's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
fast-paced
5.0
Oh boy, my heart. This one is a doozy, but I think I need to read everything Colson Whitehead writes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Child death
Minor: Sexual assault
calsters88's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Racial slurs, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual assault
lachellerising's review against another edition
dark
emotional
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? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, and Violence
karyzi's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Forced institutionalization, and Murder
Moderate: Pedophilia
Minor: Vomit
mollyb13's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
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? No
5.0
Picked this book up a couple years ago and had a hard time getting into it. Decided to give it another go since a film adaptation is coming out and it is The Stacks Book Club pick this month. And boy, am I glad that I was pushed to try reading this again. This book is worth every bit of the Pulitzer Prize that it won.
Absolutely haunting and maddening. Colson Whitehead really packs a punch in well under 300 pages. I will be processing this story and the ending for quite a while.
Absolutely haunting and maddening. Colson Whitehead really packs a punch in well under 300 pages. I will be processing this story and the ending for quite a while.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Violence
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship
seasonedreadings's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Child abuse and Physical abuse
Minor: Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
ashsparrow's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Abandonment, and Alcohol
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Racism, and Violence
Moderate: Pedophilia and Sexual assault
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual assault
Minor: Bullying