187
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #180,049 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★☆☆☆
The Pulitzer people and I disagree.
Meh. Why did this book get a Pulitzer? It's kind of like a Forrest Gump of slavery books - from Africa to the plantation to the syphilis treatments to the abolitionist sympathizer to the promised land that wound up not so promised. It wasn't all that well written, the prose was somewhat clunky, the main character seemed distant instead of immediate, and long stretches were just boring. There were a couple nice turns, including the mystery of what happened to Cora's mother - but even the slavecatcher wasn't all that well drawn. It was like a sketch of a book. Pass.
