T H E U N D E R G R O U N D R A I L R O A D

|| The Underground Railroad || Colson Whitehead || Book Review 5⭐️ ||

Harrowing, bold and important.

On a cotton plantation in Georgia, Cora is a slave abandoned by her runaway mother, fending for herself since a child. When her new master targets her as his new prey, Caesar a fellow slave, approaches her with a plan to escape. An Underground Railroad exists for the escape of slaves, with promise of an escape to a new life North. It’s time for Cora to run, but will she ever be truly free?

Whitehead’s incredible writing, made the pit of my stomach sit in knots, throughout the entirety of the book. It’s a story of despair, hope and suffering. Re-imagining the tales we have read before, of the slave trade and America’s history. My heart ached for Cora and the devastation of the evil that was inflicted on mothers, fathers, sons, daughters because of the colour of their skin. They were never truly free, always one eye over their shoulders for the past to catch up with them.

This book deserves to be read by everyone, to be put on the curriculum to educate our children in schools of the horrors of the past, to change perceptions. Horrors that as much as we wish they weren’t, are still very much relevant to the present.

A remarkable story.