The Underground Railroad by Colson WhiteheadMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Well there's nothing the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and Oprah hasn't already said about this book that I can tell you here. It's spectacular. It's about a slave named Cora who seeks freedom through the Underground Railroad. Except in this telling, the UR is an actual railroad, not a metaphorical one, built under the ground by slaves.
Whitehead does an amazing job characterizing the devastating and horrible nature of her life as a slave, as well as the challenges, hopes, disappointments, and lost opportunities of pursuing her freedom. She has several long stays along the way, including one at a "model citizen" community for escaped slaves, and one in a stationmaster's attic, that well detail the life-and-death difficulties that awaited escapees like Cora.
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