All the praise you’ve heard for this book is correct.

I do not usually read books that include graphic violence, but in the case of the Underground Railroad, I was compelled to witness the reimagining of these atrocities. It took me several weeks to make my way all the way through these pages; I gasped in horror more than once. And while this is not the “true story” of “real people,” I have no doubt that Colson Whitehead researched meticulously and wove together real truths about real people in their fight for their humanity.

I don’t know exactly how to word this, but one of the things that was so compelling about this novel was the unpredictability. Just because we met someone new didn’t mean they were a sympathetic character, or that they wouldn’t be dead by the end of the paragraph. I was riveted.