The book The Water Dancer tells the story of Hiram, a boy who is enslaved in antebellum Virginia but longing for freedom. It tells of his pursuits to join the Underground Railroad while also learning of a magical gift that he possesses himself. This is a great book. I appreciated the different perspectives it brought to people who were enslaved. It was also an engaging read. I would encourage this book as a way to learn more about the Antebellum South and slavery, especially since it is written from the perspective of a black man.

I’m not sure what I could add that hasn’t already been said. This book will be a timeless classic. I hope to add it to my curriculum.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from One World, An imprint of Random House, through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I was excited to read this book since I enjoyed “Between the World and Me” written by this author. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but struggled to understand the use and benefit of “conduction”. Conduction is a water-driven power which allows a person traverse great distance. A touch of sci-fi in a historical fiction on slavery.

Hiram Walker (“Hi”) is the protagonist who is a slave on Lockless, a tobacco farm, with a photographic memory. His father, Howell Walker, is the master of Lockless who sold Hi’s mother. The basic plot is Hi’s life as a slave of the master, attempt to escape, betrayal, abuse, involvement in the Underground, and rescue of friends of family. The reader feels the anguish of the slaves who remain as their friends and families are sold off (“Natchez-way”) due to the slow death of Lockless. Families split in two. I especially loved the interweaving of Harriet Tubman within the story.

Throughout the book, water is a big symbol. Whether through conduction or water dancing, water is significant in the lives of the slaves (“Taskers”). Water is important with the death of Maynard Walker, Hi’s half brother, making Hi the “true heir” of Lockless. This is a tough book to evaluate with the science fiction twist. It makes it a “different” book about slavery but conducting makes it implausible.

I wasn't quite sure what to think of this book at the start. I was at times confused with the author's words and phrases, but a quick google search helped me out and then it all made sense and I can see why he wrote it the way he did. WOW. I was so entranced with the story I read it any time I had a minute to spare (literally). Such creative story telling, I would recommend this book to all my friends.

National Book Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates' much-anticipated first novel is a dynamic slave narrative with a tinge of the supernatural.
For close to two decades, Ta-Nehisi Coates has been two writers. There's the celebrated essayist and author of influential nonfiction works, including the National Book Award-winning Between the World and Me, written as a heart-wrenching letter to his son about the realities of being Black in America. Then there's Coates the successful comic book writer, who in 2016 reinvigorated Marvel's floundering Black Panther series a couple of years before the character clawed his way to pop culture phenomenon status in a $1 billion grossing blockbuster. (The author has since taken on Marvel's goody two-shoes poster boy Captain America.)

Now, with the launch of The Water Dancer, we have the long-awaited third string to Coates' writer-bow – the novelist. If you were a betting person, you might have put money on Coates' major fiction debut to arrive weighted with the gravitas of his nonfiction best. Surprisingly, the novel attempts to merge both the author's political and comic book worlds, but ends up skewing towards the caped crusader camp, albeit without the genre's penchant for crotch-tight spandex.

What begins as an antebellum South slave narrative that's all wispy Toni Morrison-esque flourishes, drifts into a tale of espionage and rescue, before suddenly, in the blink of an eye, revealing itself to have been a version of a superhero origin story all along. There's even a sprinkling of meta-human powers thrown in for good measure. The about-turns are clunky, but it somehow pulls together in the end.

The prose in this novel is spectacular as are the characters. It evokes emotions and ties to the characters for the reader as well. You want to know that they will be alright. My only issue was that at times it moved a bit slow and could have used some editing.

Absolutely stunning. Beautiful, magical, jaw-dropping. And I didn't expect anything less. Wondering why this didn't make it onto more year-end Best Of lists.

I never got to read this one. Maybe some day but I just never got to it. Sorry for requesting it. Sometimes life just gets in the way of being able to read all the books you think look interesting. I will never be able to finish my to read list.

What a gorgeous book! The writing here is simply superb. There's not a lot of character development, especially for "secondary" characters. But really, this book is about the narrative, which shines. Coates is an incredible author and this book is a gift.

<i><blockquote> "Slavery does not bargain, does not compromise, it devours."</i></blockquote>

I'm a fan of Coates' non fiction and also his work with Marvel, and was really excited when I first heard about <i>The Water Dancer</i>. I received an ARC of it, but when I tried to get into it I found it difficult, and put it aside for a bunch of months. I recently picked it up again, wanting to make my way through the backlog of e-books that I have, and was captivated instantly. I loved how Coates could create such a tangible and believable world - up until it wasn't anymore. When the magic parts of this story came in, I found myself disinterested and wanted to skip them. They became redundant, and there were parts where I wasn't the biggest fan of Hiram as well. The magical and fantastical aspects of this book were just a little too different from the dark and harsh reality that was being written about that I just couldn't fully accept it or let myself get into it. I did enjoy that Harriet Tubman became part of this, and that the "Underground [Railroad]" was thought of in a new way, but otherwise these pieces fell flat. It took much too long for the explanation of the Conduction to come around, and even after it did it still didn't make a lot of sense. After having read things like <i>The Underground Railroad</i> this year, which also shows a new way of thinking of its namesake, <i>The Water Dancer</i> just fell short.

One World and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of The Water Dancer. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Hiram Walker was born into slavery, living on a plantation with his mother until she is abruptly sold when he was still a child. Intelligent and quick witted, Hiram draws the attention of the master. When tragedy strikes, this young man's world becomes irrevocably changed. Hiram is granted an opportunity to change his standing, but will he have the courage to take the leap?

A slave narrative with a bit of the supernatural mixed in, The Water Dancer was a good novel that was held back by its duality. Had the novel been strictly about the struggles of slaves, Hiram Walker in particular, the book would have been more compelling. As the story digressed, it lost my attention in a big way. Some of the plot points were wholly unrealistic, while others completely captured the history upon which some of this book was based. The author has a way with words, powerful and strong language that evokes emotion, which is why I would recommend The Water Dancer to other readers.

I liked this one, but I was expecting historical fiction and not magical realism. Still, I enjoyed not just the plot, but also Coates's writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ta-Nehisi Coates for allowing me to read and review The Water Dancer. The author is a brilliant writer and I will be recommending this novel.

I just finished reading The Water Dancer by award-winning author of Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates. I have been a huge fan of Coates’s work for some time as Between the World and Me was a book my older sister shared with me and that I still retain to this day. Water Dancer traces the experiences of Hiram Walker, a former enslaved man from Virginia who possesses the gift of conduction—that is the ability to travel through space and time to help others escape the institution of slavery. Conduction is a gift very few in the story are able to tap in to, and even Walker underestimates the power he possesses as a “water dancer.”
This book was a slow burn for me. The early part of the book reminded me of 19th century slave narratives similar to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass or Twelve Years as Slave. But the book really took an uptick about halfway through the story. Once Coates began focusing on the relationship between Walker and others who the book definitely became a gripping story. The story of conduction had deep meaning. Conduction is crafted on the idea that th through recollections and memories liberation is possible. Recovered memory seems to have dual meaning in this story however as it both allows Walker to move forward in life and it also enables him to travel through space and rescue other enslaved family members and friends. In this regard, Coates has created a stunning, powerful metaphor. It is through his ability to recall even the most traumatic experiences such as when he was separated from his mother as a young child. For me, halfway through this book, it became a page-turner.

The writing in this book lives up to the author's reputation, in other words very strong. It is also a good story and offers a variation on most typical stories of the underground railroad. However I did struggle with one thing. I found the delivery a bit dry. I don't know if it was tone or pacing. I can't put my finger on it, but there were large sections of it that were flat for me. I would still recommend it because I think it was just a personal taste issue that I struggle to even define.

The Water Dancer is a fabulous book. I loved the use of language in this book like "tasked" and "Natchez-way", it created a feeling and atmosphere that helped bring me into the story. The Water Dancer reminds me so much of The Underground Railroad in the way that they both take the underground railroad and morph it into a different form from what it really was. In The Water Dancer the underground railroad has become not just the real movement of slaves from the south to the north but a metaphysical/magic process of "conduction" through time and space by select individuals. One of those individuals is Hiram Walker.

Hiram is a slave in Virginia who is the son of the master and whose mother was sold when he was a young child. We go on a journey with Hi from his move to the house to be taught to read and write all the way to adulthood where he learns to develop his gift as a "conductor". Hi is an extraordinary individual who is recruited into the underground in Virginia where they hope he will be their secret weapon. During his training he spends time in Philadelphia working with that underground group where he meets a family that managed to make there way out and now help others.

This is a book full of strong characters that take their fates into their own hands. The characters from Philadelphia are based on a real life family that took down the stories of the people they got out. when I found this out in the author's note at the end of the book it made me interested in finding those stories. I have not been a huge fan of some of Coates's non-fiction writing but I would recommend this book to anyone.

No one needs me to tell them Coates is an incredible author. I'm so happy to have gotten an ARC for his first work of fiction. I was pleasantly surprised to find his fiction as compelling and thought-provoking as his non-fiction and essays.

This is a beautiful book that was worth the work it took to get through. The writing is stunning without being overwrought. There were some many things that were heavy and heartbreaking, but there are flashes of optimism and proof that family, love, and home are things worth fighting for. This is character driven and the plot is slow- but that forces the reader to really take their time to absorb the prose. I loved getting into the characters heads and found that really made the experience more powerful. Definitely recommend!

Oh Ta-Nehisi Coates. How happy I am that you're writing. I was a fan of your blog before you moved to the Atlantic, and you said you almost gave up on being a writer. We would all be poorer for it. I've been faithfully following your blogging and your long-form fiction, and it's informed how I view so many things and how I think about history, the current day, and even my city of Chicago. I am thrilled to read your novel. It's due to your influence I've read more about the Civil War and I can see the influence of primary sources in your account. I know what research went into this book, and appreciate it very much. I love the story itself, but it was just so enriched by the details of the era.

I enjoyed getting to know Hiram, Thena, Sophia, and everyone else in this story. I really appreciated Hiram's journey to understanding Sophia. I love how the touch of magical realism was folded into the realistic story and the historical figures.

Thank you to the publisher, from whom I received a free electronic ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review (although I also preordered a physical copy - but I love being able to read easily on my kindle as well!).

Wow. This novel is truly unlike anything I've read before. Literary fiction is usually not my thing because I don't like how the beauty of the prose replaces the importance of the plot in a lot of instances. But this is perfection: a powerful story told with powerful words. It's lyrical but also sharply insightful and visceral, the words landing like punches in the gut. The way the story is told is very striking with terminology like Tasked and Quality, pharaoh's land, and the coffin. You feel the story in your bones and that was fascinating to me.

All of the characters are wonderfully complex. I was particularly intrigued by Corrine and the Virginia station characters. The whole story has an overwhelming, immersive sense of place that you can physically feel. Because of these traits, it's certainly a story that's heavy so I didn't find it to be a speed-through kind of read. It's more thought provoking than that. I would certainly recommend this one to any reader. It's a story we should all know and feel for ourselves.


Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher Random House, and the author Ta-Nehisi Coates for the opportunity to do so.