The Nickel Boys
Ratings184
Average rating4.2
This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood's only salvation is his friendship with fellow "delinquent" Turner, which deepens despite Turner's conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.
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Was expecting to love this Whitehead but only liked it. I was very moved by Elwood's story in the beginning, but despite the twist (which was well done but telegraphs out pretty early on) and the stakes constantly being raised, I was less invested and the story seemed to be too. I definitely want to read more about the real Dozier school after this, and think it would be very discussable in a high school classroom paired with all sorts of other greatness, like nonfiction about the Dozier school, or articles by Nikole Hannah Jones or Between the World and Me, or the New Jim Crow, or We Are Not Yet Equal, etc.
One sentence synopsis... Although extremely well-written and tackling important subject matter (the horrors of a Southern reformatory school for boys in the 1960s) ‘Nickel Boys' left me oddly unaffected by the characters and predictable plot twist.
Read it if you like... tragedies, this one will beat you down and break all idealism.
Dream casting... ‘Stranger Things' Caleb McLaughlin as studious Elwood Curtis and Abraham Attah as his jaded friend Turner.
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