I think it's time to finally give up on this one. I started in February. I read about 30% of the way through, and then I didn't pick this up again for MONTHS. I never felt compelled to finish it.

I wish that I had loved this. I wish that it would have given me that urgent feeling of having to live in the story. It just didn't. It was unemotional and distant. I never really felt a connection to the characters.

I feel like I missed out on something, because everyone was raving about this last year. I just felt like I was reading a history novel of something that happened. Cora never became REAL to me. The writing was great, but I just couldn't get over the lack of connection with the characters and the feeling that everything was all over the place with random details thrown in.

Early on in this book, reading about the atrocities and violent treatment the slaves of the Georgian cotton plantation endured, I felt as if I could so easily be reading a novel set in some dystopian scifi world. Where one race subjugated another, sold and traded them as chattels, abused, raped, tortured and murdered them as if their lives were worth nothing. But then I remembered this really did happen, has happened repeatedly through history and will probably keep happening in pockets of the world, so it's important for writers and film makers to keep reminding us of these atrocities.

In his book, Colson Whitehead visualises the "underground railroad" of safe routes of passage and safe houses ('stations') as a real railroad. This works well as a device for the runaway slaves in this book to be transferred from one state to another, highlighting the different rules in place for 'free' slaves. Cora is the main character in this book, a tough young female slave whose mother Mabel escaped when Cora was a young child, leaving her to be treated as an outcast by the other slaves. Despite, or because of this, she grows up quick witted and feisty, well able to take care of herself when the opportunity comes for her to escape. The brutal owner of the plantation she belongs to sets a renowned slave catcher after her so even if she finds relative freedom she will never be safe from recapture and certain torture and death.

This was an interesting, although powerful and often disturbing book. I did feel the third person narrative and the connection with Cora was a little passive and would have been enhanced by hearing her voice at points in the retelling of her journey. Cora's story and the stories of other slaves and those involved in the railroad have perhaps been told before in other books and films, but this was well put together as a commentary on the attitudes of white America to slavery and racial subjugation in the time before before the civil war.

Atmospheric, powerful, gripping tale. Perfect for book groups as it offers many themes to explore. Highly recommend.

This novel won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Man Booker. Sometimes books that receive so much attention and praise build up the reader's hopes and end up being overhyped and disappointing, but I really didn't feel that with this book. It has the thing I am most enjoying about books lately, those that just have a really good STORY. The central character, Cora, is one who we root for, who just can't seem to catch a break, and we travel with her, willing her survival and freedom. The one gripe I have is that the underground railroad in the book is an actual railroad, built underground, with a steam locomotive, whereas historically it was a metaphorical railroad; a network of routes and safe houses leading people out of slavery to the more liberal states where they would be free. I didn't think a literal underground railroad worked from a practical point of view, and thought the novel could have done just as well without it. But I know that lots of others enjoyed the magical realism of an underground railroad. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 for me.

I couldn't get into this book . I found the language difficult and the plot confusing. I may yet persevere with it but it's been three months and I haven't finished it.

A very descriptive book around the lives of slaves in Georgia. At times I found some parts very hard to read.
Cora and Caeser decide that they can not stay any longer with their harsh owner and they draw up plans to escape.
Through the pages we read how they plan their route to freedom. Will everything go to plan? Will they become free.

Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad (review copy from Little, Brown) has achieved an interesting double: winning the Pulitzer and the Arthur C Clarke Award in 2017. It's also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Pulitzer, the Clarke and the Booker are unlikely bedfellows, but they show the impact this book has had. Whitehead has written a magical realism novel about slavery in America, following escaped slave Cora on her journey to freedom.

Whitehead literalises the underground railroad of the book's title, using it as the engine that drives Cora from state to state on her escape, experiencing different aspects of the slave experience. Whitehead moves Cora through time as well as space, enabling him to fictionalise real events that took place over American history. This is an analogue of Pilgrim's Progress, or the copy of Gulliver's Travels Cora finds in the library: a journey that is enabled and hindered by people she encounters, and tempting her to end her travelling and settle at various points on her way.

Cora's journey is one from a closeted, pastoral existence to increasing social and political awareness, and growing personal agency. Each step on her journey broadens her understanding of the world and increases her dissatisfaction, showing a different aspect of the discrimination and exploitation suffered by black people, both enslaved and free. Some of that is obvious: the cruel plantation owners or the weekly lynchings of escaped slaves. But some of it is much more subtle and insidious, including the benevolent white people seeking to instil their own values and practices, a thin veneer of tolerance concealing medical experimentation and other forms of control.

Most of all, The Underground Railroad shows how people are active and complicit in perpetuating systems of oppression. The system sets people against each other, even those that might appear at first blush to be natural allies. Poor Irish immigrants like the maid Rose are keen to separate themselves from those at the bottom of the heap; others find it an outlet for their saviour complexes; still others live in fear of setting themselves against their neighbours by standing up against poor treatment.

Ultimately, Cora's choice is one to pursue and shape her own destiny, rather than to fall into the choices and structures of others. Freedom comes in many forms, but that is the only one that truly counts.

Goodreads rating: 4*

It took me a couple of attempts to get into this, but once I did I enjoyed it. Although 'enjoy' seems the wrong word to be using for a book about slavery. The book moves at a pace, and the whole underground railroad idea was intriguing. I wanted to know more (How? Steam trains? Underground? Where did all the smoke go?!) but that was all left to my imagination.
I found some of the other character interruptions frustrating. I could have done without them for the most part.
This was definitely a solid 'good' from me.

I am normally the type of person who says everything happens for a reason, but with this book I struggled. What is the reason for enslaving other human beings and acting as if they have inferior intellect? This was such a powerful read that will make your heart ache. So many elements of this book hit me hard. I generally shy away from historical fiction, but I'm so glad I didn't for this book.

Very powerful. Interesting to see that it has won the Clarke Award - it is only tangentially an SF book

I thought the writing was fine, and I absolutely admire the strength of the heroine, but I found the book unremittingly bleak and death came to seem a respite for many of the characters, good and bad alike. Not sure who I would recommend this to, but as it has won many prizes (including for science fiction?!) I don't think I'll be discouraging anyone with my review.

Beautifully written. Amazing storytelling
This book describes a very sad but important part of history .

When I started this book I was not sure I would be able to actually finish it. The authors style took a bit of getting used to and the atrocities visited upon the slaves were very hard to read about. As the book progressed however I became more and more invested in Cora's life and I just had to see it through to the finish.
A lot of the book was so hard to read. The awful things that were done on the basis of colour alone were so hard to read about. There were some happy parts though and Cora was an amazingly strong main character. The author took major liberties with the Underground Railroad, turning it into a real Railway under the ground when I believe it was really an organisation which was able to smuggle people of colour out to safer places. It was a nice touch though especially as Cora's experiences changed with each journey she made.
Altogether a tough book to read but totally worth it. Nicely written, strong characters and thought provoking.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  This is a spoiler-free review.

The Underground Railroad has been on my radar since its publication in 2016.  It received pretty much all of the good press a book could get – it was one of the titles in Oprah’s book club, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award, and was named as one of the books Barack Obama read while in office.  It’s a departure from a lot of the books I’ve been reading these days, but I knew I had to pick it up.

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hellish for all the slaves but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned and, though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor - engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven - but the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. Even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.*

I don’t want to say too much about the plot, because I do think it’s one of those books in which the story has the greatest effect when you truly discover it on your own.  The Underground Railroad follows Cora, who changes and evolves as she follows the literal underground railroad from Georgia, to South Carolina, and beyond.  The tone of the book also changes as she sheds her identity as a slave and begins to think and act more like a free woman.  The book feels almost impersonal in the beginning, as Cora has walls up to protect herself against the horrors she has experienced and continues to face.  There are side characters, but we don’t know much about them.  As she makes her way further along the underground railroad, these walls begin to crumble and we get more information about these other characters and form an emotional connection alongside Cora.  Her story is sprinkled with interludes that explain the backgrounds and motivations of the people she meets and who either help or hinder her on her journey.  This was one of the most brilliant parts of the book for me, as you really get a sense of Cora’s pain and guilt over the course of her journey and character arc.  By the end, her walls have come down and Cora’s burden is so tangible.

This is a book that manages to be both gut-wrenching and hopeful.  Cora is an incredible character that should be admired for her strength and resolve.  The brutality and injustice of American slavery are laid out in The Underground Railroad – not just in the way that slaves were treated but how white citizens turned a blind eye or joined in on the brutality.  The Underground Railroad is a book that should be read widely and will prove to be an important work of fiction of our time and political climate.  It is easily one of the best books I've read this year.

Rating: 5/5

*Copy courtesy of Goodreads

One of the best novels I've read. Regularly mentioned on my Youtube and Twitter accounts - full review will be included in my wrap-up of the year as one of my highlights!

A special thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Delighted to review Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad. The writing is excellent, and for the most part, it was perfectly executed. This book deserves all of the accolades it is going to get, and will be the topic of many a Book Club.

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia and like all of the slaves, she is treated horrifically. She is also an outcast among her people, and things are only going to get worse for her as she approaches womanhood. Caesar has recently arrived from Virginia, and he tells Cora about the Underground Railroad—the two decide to escape to the north.

The narrative follows Cora's journey toward freedom and at each stop she is met with a different world. She is hunted by Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, and must navigate her way to liberation.

This book was hard for me to rate. There was a lot of disturbing subject matter, and while this is a fictitious story, there were many Cora's and Caesars, and this story is important to tell for many reasons. I wanted more from the supporting cast of characters, Whitehead does them a disservice by not developing them to their full potential.

This was a really interesting story which focused on a network which tried to help people escape from slavery. This is a subject I haven't read many fiction books about, so I appreciated this angle. I thought the main character was well developed and realistic and it was the compelling nature of her story that kept me reading. The only issue I have with this book is that it is too short.

A book that will be on the top of list for quite some time and in my memory for even longer. This book is a masterpiece.

Excellent book. Story fantastic and well written. Deserving of all awards.

An alternate history where the Underground Railroad is in fact an actual railroad with conductors and engineers. A very imaginative, unique story that captivates from the very beginning. I was curious what differences would exist in this world and how an actual railroad would have historical implications on the world we live in where there was a metaphorical railroad. The characters could use some sort of emotional connection, though I remained entertained throughout. The novel is a though-provoking read - one I would highly recommend everyone read. This should become a high school requirement.