A brutal and engrossing novel about an awful situation. Now adapted into a TV series - the book is well worth reading.

I wanted to see something in this but ... I just could not. It felt like another instance of literary torture where the reader is required to bear witness to various fictional atrocities as if to somehow show respect to those which have occurred in real life. But honestly, it felt derivative. And I have read this story so many times before. I read Beloved. I read Ruby. I have watched Twelve Years A Slave. And this story didn't feel like it brought very much that was fresh to the genre and it was just *so* depressing. It would have helped if I could have felt some connection to the characters but they all felt pretty cliched to me. I will keep my review private since I was not able to make it more positive.

This is such an amazing, classic book, and by the first few pages, it's easy to see why. This book is so poignant and heartbreaking, and I was hooked the entire way through.

Harrowing. Words came to live in a vivid and compelling manner. This book has been in my to-read list for quite some time, and I’m kicking myself for not getting around to it earlier. A fantastic read.

This book for me is complicated. Maybe it took me too long to read, maybe it wasn't the right time, and maybe it just was not for me. A book so profoundly important and culturally relevant surely does not need my dissenting voice. However, I can firmly say this lived up to the praise for me. I will be inclined to read more of Whitehead's work, but this novel was not captivating and compelling to me.

Horrifying, sickening, tragic and yet hopeful, all rolled into one tale about an incredible woman named Cora fleeing the atrocities of slavery in the American south. It was so hard to read some of the story - the brutality was just laid bare - but I couldn't put it down. I liked the small chapters on the history of some of the ancillary characters and would've enjoyed more of that. Whitehead's twist on the Underground Railroad - making it an actual train with "stations" underneath homes and barns - was really interesting and I wish he would've explored that more.

An important and terrifying read. I tried to write a longer review than this, but I just can’t find the right words. It’s a haunting novel, made worse by the reality behind Whitehead’s fiction. A must-read for everyone.

Interesting fictional book about the escape routes of the African-American slaves during the slave period. Raw and real, this story will stay with you

The underground railroad was an excellent read. I reviewed it on the blog in 2017 (linking below). It dealt with topics such as oppression of woman and slavery. I loved the way Whitehead makes the novel such an engaging one. But overall, I was a bit underwhelmed. I expected more. I read this along side Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and I seemed to like Gyasi's narrative more. Neverthless, I read The Underground Railroad with a lump in my throat and I'd definitely recommend it.

This book lives up to the hype! Whitehead's underground railroad is a real, if slightly mysterious/fantastical railroad which carries slaves on the run from plantations in America's southern states in the nineteenth century.

The setting is unique; historical but with a dystopian twist so that each state depicted functions semi-independently and has its own way of dealing with slavery. This allows Whitehead to expose the insidious nature of racism, the abhorrent cruelty of slavery and its legacy in a genuinely new way.

The novel's protagonist, Cora, undertakes several journeys on the railroad, and her journey brings us to a whole range of other characters from fellow slaves, to plantation owners, slave catchers, sympathetic white allies, doctors, and even grave robbers. Some of these characters appear only briefly, others have are more developed, but all are used to show the impact of slavery on America as a nation, and on Americans.

I’m sorry to say this book actually disappointed me.

I was really looking forward to reading it. I had heard nothing but raving reviews, it was an Oprah book pick, and I knew it would be an important book. It just didn’t live up to all the expectations I had placed on it.

This part of American history is one that everyone needs to read about in detail. The horrors are more than some can imagine, and none will actually know except those who have suffered through them. It’s important for everyone to be aware of what happened in the past, what still happens in some places today, and to make a conscious effort to be better in each moment - to ourselves and to each other, for posterity.

I liked the concept of the story, but other than taking the metaphoric railroad and making it literal, I didn’t see all the magic in the story that others seemed to find. It was a rather straightforward telling of tragedy and perseverance, but for me it lacked the emotional depth I want from a topic this powerful. The disassociative nature of the narrative could be analyzed as a reflection of the necessity to disassociate one’s self during times of tragedy as a means of coping - such is the case with some characters - but it left me wanting more and I never felt fully drawn in because of it.

At times it was reminiscent of roots in its telling of the backstories behind multiple characters who all intertwine throughout the story, but it felt like too much explicit telling of characters and places and experiences instead of showing and allowing the reader to explore this world and these people more personally. This, to me, detracted from the overall story. The parts I liked most were the parts about Cora, the main character, and her experiences in the real time of the story.

Another part that took me out of the story at times was the structural make up of jumping around in time and place and character perspective. I like the use of the third-person omniscient narrator to get insight into multiple characters, but at times it seemed very jolting in the jumps from one place, time, or character to the next which caused me to have to consciously reorient myself into the story. It lacked flow for me.

There were times throughout the book, though, that Whitehead employs some really poignant language. There were points where I would read a sentence and then pause to reflect on how powerful and meaningful the few short words actually were. These sentences are what kept me digging through the rest of the prose for the long haul.

I think it all tied up at the end, though. Obviously it’s not a nice ending, because that’s not how life works and especially not at this point in history. But the choices at the end of the book felt real and authentic which I always appreciate from an author.

I think for me I just set too high of expectations for the book beforehand. Had I gone into it without any preconceived notions I might have felt differently.

This book is not usually my normal kind of read, but I do like to read an award nominated or winner book every now and then! It was a very difficult book to read. Not just for the fact that it was to do with the subject of slavery and the horrific treatment that the African American slaves had to endure but also because I couldn’t really get into it and found it all a bit depressing. Now I understand it’s not supposed to be an all singing and dancing book but I wasn’t expecting it to be as difficult a read as it was. I was initially really interested in the railroad and the history behind it and this for me was the difference between finishing and not finishing. The rest of the book, whilst true, was horrific and uncomfortable reading.

It did have some beautiful parts in it, but I’m afraid the book wasn’t really for me.

A lot was written about The Underground Railroad, it was Oprah's Book Club selection, made it onto the list of Barack Obama's favourite books and author won many awards for this book, including Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Award. I finally read this book and I can appreciate and truly understand why so much was written about it. It's an excellent book, and to be honest I can't formulate my opinion on this book in an easy way. Because of the tough topic of the book, it's extremely hard for me to write a review on it, I'm not well equipped to write about horrors and hardships that are hard for me to image and understand and just cannot translate to any hardships in my life.

When it comes to books that cause tumultuous emotions in me, there are books that are hard to read because they hit close to home, and there are books like this, with such horrible crimes that aren't personal, but are just so devastating to read about and to image.

The main character, Cora is not fully developed character, we never learn much about her. We learn about her experiences, what she goes though, but her inner life is never truly show. I think this is a clever play on the slavery narrative, on how the experiences define the character, how Cora never has a chance to live freely and actually have a serious chance on experiencing new and enjoyable things in life. America is preventing her from being a free person, so we also never really get a fully developed character. As a reader, I become a witness to all the horrors and little joys of the story, witness who's detached from the story, who can just see what's happening but can never truly understand the characters. I never connected to the characters, but I didn't need that connection to care about them.

The idea behind the underground railroad it interesting, the concept of an actual railroad is fascinating and I wish we were given some history behind the railroad. Like Cora, I wish we got to learn how it was built.

The concept was cool, but didn't strike me as particularly original. The main character, however, was engaging and well-written, and I think this would be a good book to handsell to many people.

An intriguing way of describing the underground railroad that slaves used to escape from their hellish situations. It is very well written - sometimes hard to read - and an important book to keep reminding us of the terrible crimes committed by one race against another.

I'm in the minority of people who didn't finish this book - I found it extremely depressing / unrelentingly grim (not entirely surprisingly, given its subject matter. However, given the awards it's won/been shortlisted for, I would give it to friends - although with a warning that it's a far from upbeat read.

The Underground Railroad is an instant classic - it's up there with The Colour Purple and other greats. I'll be pushing this into the hands of everyone I know!

Colin Whitehead is a new discovery for me and what an exquisite book he has written with “The Underground Railroad, one of the finest I read all year. Do not miss reading this novel.
I have to confess I was very reluctant to read this Pulitzer Prize winner as descriptions of cruelty usually stay with me for days. A book dealing with slavery in 19thcentury America I knew would contain scenes that I would find difficult to digest and I was right. But for some reason Whitehead’s writing did not affect me this way. The cruelty committed by the white population and American Southern plantation owners towards their black slaves was truly incomprehensible. One of the sentences in this book that really stuck with me is that “evil soaks into the earth”, an explanation why I always felt many countries and former colonies that have treated some of their citizens in the most brutal manner are unable to shed this bloody heritage, racism and hate still sticking in people’s behavior and minds. As one of the critics I read said so correctly, Colin Whitehead perfectly portraits “a road movie into the heart of America’s darkness”.

“The Underground Railroad” is a literary but highly accessible novel telling the story of Cora, a slave runaway and the history of the American Underground Railroad aiding slaves on their way into freedom up North or into Canada. Cora’s odyssey and her journey from inhuman plantation life in George in the mid-19thcentury and her escape with Cesar , a fellow slave, left me often almost in tears and despair for their plight. The journey she undertakes trying to stay ahead of Ridgeway, a slave catcher, experiencing passages of utter misery but also encountering selfless abolitionists and members of the Underground Railroad risking their own lives to help others, make for unputdownable reading. The cruelty and brutality human beings can inflict on others in this novel are sometimes unimaginable including other slaves telling on their own kind, behavior we encounter worldwide into the present when victims side with their oppressors. “The Underground Railway” and all the characters in this book captured my heart and mind until the very last word, particularly that of Cora’s fate

Cora’s grandmother, Ajarry, had been taken from her village, in chains, marched for miles and sold a few times before even reaching American soil. Once reaching land she was again sold at “markets” before finally arriving at the Randall Plantation. It was here where Cora’s mother was born and from where she made her dash for freedom, leaving her, Cora, still a small child, in the care of her grandmother.

At first, when Caesar, a fellow slave, suggests to Cora that they try to escape, Cora is terrified, but then, because of circumstances that made her realise that staying was worse than attempting freedom, she changes her mind and the two, using the underground railway, running for miles, manage to get away from the Randall Plantation.

What they had not taken into consideration, was the Slave Catcher, Arnold Ridgeway, who had taken it as a personal insult when Mabel, Cora’s mother, had escaped all those years before.

Colson Whitehead has been criticised for very graphic scenes of violence. Without a doubt, reading how slaves were captured, raped, sold like any other “product,” beaten – often to death, disfigured or even burned alive is not light reading but it is unfortunately necessary to include simply because it is based on fact. Truth definitely hurts and reading this has given me nightmares.

What reading this book has taught me is that history, regardless of how ugly, must be told. By creating this novel, with Cora as the protagonist, the author has recaptured how harsh times were, but that, amidst all this horror, we’re introduced to people who are prepared to take on the might of these plantation owners and slave catchers to help slaves find freedom.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

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.