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Book Review of The Nickel Boys

The Nickel Boys
The Nickel Boys
Author: Colson Whitehead
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Hardcover
joann avatar reviewed on + 412 more book reviews


Elwood Curtis is a black boy growing up with a huge admiration for Martin Luther King, Jr. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida with his grandmother, after being left behind by his parents in their fleeing to California.
He is about to start taking courses at a local college and tries to find a way to get to said college by hitchhiking. He gets into a car and is arrested, as the car was stolen by the driver, and therefore is considered as guilty as the perpetrator.
He is sent to the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says is provides "physical, intellectual, and moral training to those entering its realms. That is not the course, as Elwood soon finds out.
This is a chamber of horrors, with beatings, deaths, etc being handed out like lollipops.

This was good. The ending is astounding.