The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (#119 in 2019)
The Jim Crow-era has his Tallahassee, Florida, and Elwood Curtis is living with his grandmother. As Elwood nears his graduation from high school and seeks to enroll in a local black college, he gets arrested for a "crime" that lands in between a rock and a hard place. Elwood can choose to either go to jail or attend a "reform school" called The Nickel Academy where the government believes he will be molded into a more honest man. The Nickel Academy is less of a school and more like a torture facility.
Please don't hate me, book-world. I know I'm probably in the minority here, and I know that I'm disagreeing with the amazingly well-read Barack Obama, but I found this book so incredibly lackluster. (I'm so sorry, Barry-O, please don't drop me from the team.)
The Nickel Boys is based on horrific true events, and I honestly expected to be incredibly moved by what I read... and I was just... not. Linguistically, The Nickel Boys was fantastic-- Whitehead's writing is impeccable and fluid. In terms of captivating me, this book fell very flat.
I wanted to love this book, I promise. As many of you know, I tend to read lots of very heavy subject matter. I like reading about tough topics and I love to learn more about history be it through nonfiction or historical fiction where real details are blended with fictional stories. Something about the delivery in The Nickel Boys just left me with a very dry feeling. Honestly, my favorite part of the entire book was a combination of the epilogue and the author's note where Whitehead discusses his own research into the truth behind this fictional story.
As a Gemini rising, you already know how inquisitive I am (see my review for My Friend Anna and subsequent admission of unabashed internet lurking). Spurred on by Colson Whitehead's book, I took a deep dive into research about The Dozier School for Boys. The boys who were sent to this school came from both black and white backgrounds, and hundreds of men have come forward to convey gruesome tales of abuse. There are so many articles regarding the investigation into the school's reform tactics as well as the anthropologists' research into identifying the remains of students found on site.
I have to say that I appreciated my own research more than I appreciated the book. Did I love The Nickel Boys? No. But Did I enjoy the research assignment that came as a result of reading The Nickel Boys? Yes. I give the book 2.5 stars ⭐️⭐️💫
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