A few years ago, I read The Underground Railroad by the impressive and well-regarded Colson Whitehead. While he's written a number of other books, I thought I'd give The Nickel Boys a try, as it too was a Pulitzer Prize wining novel. While not as engaging and interesting a read as The Underground Railroad (my review here), I did it enjoy it.
The Nickel Boys is actually loosely based on a real life reform school in Florida that was open for over a century. This story centers on Elwood Curtis, who is unfairly sentenced to this juvenile reform school. While a bright teen on a fairly straight path in life, his experience totally changes upon his arrival and time at this school. He learns a lot about friendship, the unfairness of life (especially for people of color), and survival. Changing timelines from his current life back to his experiences at Nickel Academy, the book has a nicely moving plot.
As you could assume from the Pulitzer earned, the writing is fantastic. Whitehead has a way, not just with words, but with character development and adroit details, leading to memorable descriptions of people and places. Relatedly, the main character is beautifully described and easy to root for. While many aspects of the novel are difficult to read (violence against young black boys, overt racism, etc.), Elwood consistently delivers as the moral heart of the story. He's easy to root for as the clear hero of the story.
On a whole, the book has a nice pace, and I never found myself bored. Nonetheless, it didn't excite me to pick it up as much as other books. The rising action is limited and usually small in scope (until the ending, which was an interesting surprise). There are also stretches of menial plot and character development, that also were not the most enjoyable.
It's also always hard to read about the history of racism in this country and all the ways it has hurt people (and continues to do so). While the book doesn't ever read like a textbook or news article (in the best of ways), you can't help but think often about the systems of historical racism in our country.
Which, in some ways, did make me appreciate the real historical roots of this story. The Dozier School, which opened on the first day of the past century, is the school that Whitehead based his work. I urge you to learn more about it (and others). For me, as this was was a new piece of information about historical racism at work, and I think others might also appreciate knowing more too.
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