The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I really don't understand why all the fuss about this book. This year I decided to be a bit more harsh with my book ratings, so this one gets a 3/5. Yes, it talks about the times when the racial segregation was still strong. And it talks about the Nickel Academy, a juvenile reformatory known for its cruelty and few kids that spent some parts of their loves there.It is a story based on similar institutions that were led in 1960's and 1970's, and I do get that some horrible, horrible things were happening at that kind of 'schools at the time'. I really respect Mr. Whitehead to open the topic to the public and start a discussion about what was really happening in America in those years. But I do miss some feelings in this book. Because I'm an emotional reader and to love a book I have to love it's characters, have to feel their emotions and have to care for their actions. And I just didn't have any of it here. Maybe I am weird, maybe I am cold, I don't know. But for me, it felt more like I'm reading a history manual rather than a historical fiction novel.

As so often, the critics have misled me. Bought in advance of release on the strength of the reviews. Long winded and tedious. The presumably true backdrop is grim. The fictional rendering is uninteresting.

Publication day for the long awaited new Colson Whitehead novel, finally arrived!The Nickel Boys is an emotive and thought provoking title. The novel is loosely based around a real life true case of systemic abuse at a borstal type facility in 1960s America. Whilst the novel deals with themes of physical/emotional/sexual abuse, it does so in a sensitive manner. Only using scenes of violence to portray the fear within the boys and the complete and utter control their abusers have over them.The novel is set in 1960s America the fight for civil rights is a backstory within the boys lives. But unfortunately equal rights will not come quick enough for Elwood and Turner. The boys come from very differing backgrounds, although both have known the emotional pain of abandonment and loss. Despite their different out looks on life, they instantly bond at the Nickel Academy. Their friendship will be the only saving grace during their time of detainment.How do you follow-up a title as powerful as The Underground Railroad? How do you ever emulate a title that has had such global appeal and massive success?Colson Whitehead has picked a real life part of history and used it to display how institutional racism gives way to abuse and even murder.Life at the Nickel Academy is one of brutalisation, humiliation and loss of power for the boys detained there. How anyone can ever conceive that this environment would enable young men to make the changes they need, one can never truly know.What the boys need is love, acceptance and a chance to learn. But there is NONE of that at the Nickel Academy.I haven’t included any quotes in this review, as the title is only 208 pages. I raced through them at breakneck speed. leaving no time for note taking. Colson Whitehead has an exceptional way with words and there were many opportunities to quote moving passages.The Nickel Boys is a hard-hitting title which is perfect for book groups, debate and discussion. I have a feeling it will stay with readers for a long time after the closing pages are finally turned!Literary food for the soul, heart and the brain. 4.5*

The Nickel Boys is Colson Whitehead's seventh novel and the follow up to his critically acclaimed and Pulitzer prize winning novel The Underground Railroad. I guess it might have been an eagerly awaited novel but perhaps not anticipated that it would land Whitehead a second Pulitzer prize.The Nickel Boys is based on true events that are fictionalized. It tells the story of a segregated reform school, The Nickel Academy, where wayward boys are sent to redeem themselves and become good citizens. There are two main protagonists, Elwood and Turner, each with different perspectives on the world they inhabit and therefore their attitude and response to the Academy's ethos and operation also differs.Whitehead tells a story of friendship, injustice and inhuman behaviour. The narrative is oblique and indistinct. There are hints and suggestions as to what is happening leaving the reader to infer and imagine regarding what has occurred. It seems that telling the story in this style allowed Whitehead to avoid playing on our feelings. This left me somewhat detached rather than fully engaged with the story.This is a timely novel, published at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. Without telling the reader, the novel seeks to show the discrimination, racism and brutality that black people have faced since slavery. Elwood's grandmother, Harriet, is a symbol of the brutality and pain faced by black people. Her father was jailed for failing to get out of the way of a "white lady". He was subsequently found hanged in his cell. Her husband got hit on his head and died while protecting a boy from three white men.One of the things the novel does is to track the history of racism and protest in the USA. More pertinent is shows how past racism impact upon the lives of Elwood and his family. Sadly, in doing so the novel also highlights how little, if anything, has changed both for Elwood and his family in the 1960's, where the story is set, and for the black reader of today.One of the disturbing things that recurs throughout the novel is the fact that although set in the 1960s, contemporary life then had echoes of a past that harks back to the times of slavery. So Turner and Elwood end up discussing the pros and cons of making good their escape by going into and hiding in a swamp. Their discussion of the means of escape is one that was held hundreds of years ago by many slaves trying to escape.At times the story becomes poignant. The disappearance of a father, an alcoholic mother, ambitious parents who head out west and leave their off-spring to be brought up by grandparents. These are the backdrops of some the boys - a hopeless start in life. But against this backdrop there is great humanity among these poor and outcast folks. Turner's aunt, "took him in and made sure Turner had nice clothes for school and three meals".Whitehead has presented a story that is certainly worth telling and reading. However, his emphasis on showing above telling left me unengaged.

This is a fictionalised story based on a real reformatory school in Florida and inspired by true accounts of those in attendance there.I really enjoy Colson Whitehead's writing, I remember thinking The Underground Railroad was great. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this one as much. Our protagonist is Elwood who is just about to start College when his plans are put on hold when his involvement in the Civil Rights movement gets him arrested and sent to a reformatory school. Reformatory schools were supposed to offer training and skills to make the students 'honourable men' instead they were utter hell holes and the 'training' consisted of torture and cruelty.This book is a necessary piece of historical fiction and I learned lots from it on a subject I knew nothing about, however as a story I found myself a bit lost in the middle and disengaged at points.