The Nickel Boys

The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

civil rights ・ tragedy ・based on a true story

Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys is a shocking page-turner written to reel in readers until the very last page. Whitehead is a skilled author who's ability to create complex characters, write stories within stories, and add foreshadowing that ties it all together makes his novel a brilliant piece. The Nickel Boys tells the story of Elwood, a young black boy in the Southern U.S., around the time of the civil rights movement. Elwood was brought up by his grandmother after his parents left him behind to pursue their own goals. She instilled values in the boy which made him a motivated, respectful, passionate young man, with so much optimism that the downtrodden world around him seemed to barely affect him. That is until Elwood was sent to Nickel Academy, a reform school, after naively being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A school that provides boys an education, performs community service, turns young delinquents into respectful men... a place that, behind a curtain of pride and good service, tortures boys and buries them in unmarked graves. It takes everything Elwood has to learn how to survive each day and appear strong to his grandmother. His naïve optimism calls him to make changes for himself and his fellow Nickel Boys, and his efforts produce an unforeseen ending. Elwood goes on to make a name for himself, in a way that readers would never see coming. The Nickel Boys is a fascinating novel, based on the lives of countless children who never saw justice. It is a brief, exciting book which I highly recommend.

Recommended for: readers with an interest in civil rights, American history, and endings with a twist