Has anyone else read "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead?

I’ve started it but not got into it. Should I keep going?

I looked at the blurb and I looked at a couple of reviews – it didn’t seem like it was my thing. So I’m going to pass on this one.

I tend not to like “magical realism” as a plot crutch; Whitehead’s concept of a real railroad just seems a bit far fetched to me.

So if you finish it, let me know if it is worth putting in the time.

I thought it was worth putting in the time although I did skim in a few places. I read an interview with him this afternoon and understand what he was trying to do a bit better.

Interesting that the three people on this thread are all librarians!

I didn’t realise @elbanditoroso was a librarian too!

I’ve not read it @janbb. The subject matter would interest me, but I’d rather read a more factual account than you have described.

I have not read it. I too, do not much care for magical realism. If you’re interested in the subject matter of the underground railroad, I just finished reading two books by Jennifer Chiaverini about the subject, from two very different perspectives. One, from the perspective of a northern pioneer woman, who hides a runaway slave in her home, and the second book is from the perspective of the runaway slave. These are works of fiction, but the author did a lot of research on the subject to try to make the story realistic, and as accurate as possible.

I love this author’s series on quilting stories. These two books are part of that series. The first one is called The Runaway Quilt and the other one is called The Lost Quilter. You can read them in either order, but the story is a continuation story, but they can be read as completely separate books, I just happened to read them in the order they were written. I’ve been wending my way through all of Jennifer Chiaverini’s quilting series books and I can’t get enough of them.

I haven’t read it, but I don’t like the idea of it from what you have described. I remember being a little girl and thinking it was a real railroad. Eventually, in school, I figured it all out. Reinforcing the idea of an actual railroad in a book doesn’t sound like a good idea to me, but I guess it’s not the author’s responsibility to worry about the few people who stil might not understand it’s not an actual railroad.

I don’t like when too much liberty is taken with real historical events.

I don’t know the history behind why it was called the Underground Railroad. How the name came to be.

By the way, my phone automatically capitalizes Underground Railroad. Is that incorrect? It makes sense to me that it should be capitalized.