There is no doubt that this is an enormously impressive book, exhaustively researched, with attention paid to every single detail. I was totally unfamiliar with the concept of the Great Migration before reading this, but Wilkerson presents a beautifully constructed argument for and history of the importance of this movement and the impact that it has had not only on Black history in America, but on the country's current trajectory.

There was, however, one aspect of her writing that bothered me. I understand that there is a lot of detail to pack in here, and that some repetition might be beneficial for the reader, especially if you were to consume this over a much longer period than I did. But there was a lot of information — relationships, statistics, back story — that was repeated over and over again throughout the course of the book, some instances within even a few pages of each other. Again, I can appreciate the benefits of that to an extent, but at a certain point, it just starts to feel a little condescending. I mean, Wilkerson must have reintroduced Eustis's long-term sheriff in his ten-gallon hat close to 10 times. In a more standard academic text, where readers are consuming research in smaller chunks rather than the book as a whole, that might make more sense, but the narrative structure that Wilkerson clearly worked so hard to produce doesn't necessarily lend itself to that. Honestly, I think this could have been trimmed by at least 20 pages or so if some of that repetition had been cut out.

But again, this was overall minor in terms of Wilkerson's incredible storytelling abilities and the sheer force of will that must have gone into researching this book. She takes this long, complex, often brutal history and really transforms it into a wonderfully readable story of American resilience and determination.