Lee Parker

Insightful, heartbreaking read. Thank you to Bryan Stevenson and other legal warriors fighting to for justice and striving to right the wrongs of our inherently racist system. Such an important book, beautifully written - a nonstop page turner.

The main character in the Nickel Boys, a young aspirational boy named Ellwood, was enthralled with the peaceful doctrines of his hero Dr. Martin Luther King who believed a balanced education ‘discerns the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.’ But the system was built against young southern black boys during the Jim Crow era, as Whitehead’s novel points out in heartbreaking clarity. Ultimately this is a story about overcoming odds, if just one boy survived The Nickel Academy (a juvenile penitentiary modeled on the unfortunately real Dozier School for Boys in Florida) and managed to make a successful life for themselves, Nickel lost. None of the boys were supposed to survive this place, even if they got out. It was designed to keep them, ‘Nickel was the very afterlife that awaited him, with a White House down the hill and an eternity of oatmeal and the infinite brotherhood of broken boys’. The character Turner reflected ‘It was not enough to survive, you have to live.’ Whitehead writes so beautifully it’s impossible to put this book down. I loved every heartbreaking minute of it. A must read.

Captivating, beautifully written modern masterpiece! Miller brings this classic story to new life. I loved it from beginning to end. Highly recommend!