The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I did not care for this book. Perhaps my expectations were too high given the positive press it received. I found it difficult to get into the rhythm of the cadence of the language. I also did not see what the point was of representing the underground railroad as an actual railroad – I found it distracting from the overall story.
The brutality of the treatment of the slaves was difficult to read and sobering but was in some perverse way the best part of the book. The other storylines in the book did not connect for me. I love to read historical fiction as it makes the past alive and often pushes me to learn more about a point in time – both good and bad. However, I found this book just a chore to finish and it didn’t really have the impact on me that I expected.
I read this for my book group and we all expected it to be one of our highest rated books for this reading year. In reality it may be one of the lowest.
My musings on books 