The Underground Railroad in WACKY READING CHALLENGES

Feb 01, 2024 Olivermagnus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, feb-2024, fiction, 2024, authors-of-color

The Underground Railroad begins with a short look at the roots of slavery, when people kidnapped from their villages were taken to ships and sold as slaves in the Americas. We follow Ajarry's capture and then the numerous times she's sold, along with a view of what her life is like on a plantation. That chapter is brief because the main focus of the book is Cora, Ajarry's daughter, born into slavery on a Georgia cotton plantation and viewed as mad by the other slaves. When another slave, Caesar, ...more

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May 11, 2017 Michelle rated it it was ok

Shelves: team-top-hat, alternate-history

I couldn't wait to read this book. The premise sounded clever and imaginary despite the historical aspects that were occurring during the time frame. The first half was quite intriguing. The last half seemed to have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and never found it's way again. I kept reading, hoping it would get back to what the synopsis was supposed to be, but it never really did and it lost it's luster. The side characters all seemed to jumble together and sound like they were written with ...more

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Mar 19, 2017 *Dawn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2017

The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
Audio narrated by Bahni Turpin
3-1/2*

Fictionalized account of one woman's harrowing journey out of the Deep South via the escape route dubbed "The Underground Railroad". This author's version uses a play on words by portraying the railroad as an actual system of train tracks and tunnels dug underground, each section only traveling a short distance before it would reach another stop, the fugitives departing for a short time, hiding in a location provided The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
Audio narrated by Bahni Turpin
3-1/2*

Fictionalized account of one woman's harrowing journey out of the Deep South via the escape route dubbed "The Underground Railroad". This author's version uses a play on words by portraying the railroad as an actual system of train tracks and tunnels dug underground, each section only traveling a short distance before it would reach another stop, the fugitives departing for a short time, hiding in a location provided to them and then starting up from another station a distance away. The tunnels would just stop at certain points, then the boxcar would reverse its direction and return to the beginning of the line.

Although the actual Underground Railroad received its name because the different stops along the way were referred to as "stations" and the people directing the fugitives to the next location on the route called themselves "conductors", for those who don't know this already, it wasn't literally an underground railway system. That would have made things a lot easier if it were true! In reality, the "railroad" was simply--although not simple in its execution--a series of hidey holes in barns, cellars, attics, wood piles, hidden rooms, tunnels, or just hiding places in the woods granting temporary shelter (and with luck, safety), a little food, and rest for a multitude of terrified and abused runaway slaves, led from place to place by volunteers who also had to live in fear for assisting them. The route and stops along the way changed frequently and everyone was at the mercy of trusting others to keep everything secret.

Some say there may have been as many as 100,000 slaves who escaped to the northern American states and Canada through this network between the early 1800s and 1850. It's absolutely incredible if that is true.

Although this is well researched and covers the topic well, the fantasy element of an actual railroad system was a bit off-putting and caused me some confusion. I found some parts very interesting and eerie, i.e. a southern town that touted itself as being a place of refuge for escaping slaves, but had an unsettling way of dealing with anyone found harboring them. It was also sad to hear of medical experiments being done to people without their knowledge (by Northern doctors). In looking this up for confirmation, I also learned that this type of experimentation occurred at a later point in history as well (from 1932-1972, if you can believe it), once again using black men who were diagnosed with syphilis unbeknownst to them, left untreated, and then just watched by the so-called doctors who wanted to study the progression of the disease. This, of course, then affected their wives and babies born to them. People are sick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskege...

The main character, Cora Randall, is just a young girl when her mother, Mabel, desperately flees the plantation and their wicked master, leaving her to her own devices and to the abuses that befall young women who are left without protection. What happens next affects Cora for the remainder of her days, leaving her afraid to trust, to love, and seemingly unable to feel much emotion at all. Despite her tragic circumstances, it was still hard as a reader to feel connected to Cora because of that emptiness and lack of feeling she displayed. There were a lot of interesting characters, but we weren't given enough information about them to delve further into what made them tick. That was a disappointment. Really the dominating emotion throughout the book was FEAR. There was one shining moment where Cora received some gentle care and words from a friend, allowing her to feel a spark of hope for a short time. The ending also answered some questions for the reader which lingered from the beginning of Cora's story. ...more

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