Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Sponsored Products are advertisements for products sold by merchants on Amazon.com. When you click on a Sponsored Product ad, you will be taken to an Amazon detail page where you can learn more about the product and purchase it.
To learn more about Amazon Sponsored Products, click here.
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead is a magnificent novel chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. See more
Product Details
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Books; First Edition edition (September 15, 2015)
Review by: Stacy Palm *** 3 out of 5 stars Release Date: 9/15/2015
First, let me clarify that my 3 star rating is a neutral rating. This is a very difficult book for me to review. I'll start with what I believe is the premise. This is a book about marriage, and about individual perspectives on the same situation. It's a book that brings to light that every person experiencing a situation, even if the situation seems mundane, brings with them their own prior knowledge, and their own view hinged upon all the information that they know that others may not. It is also a book about compromise and what that compromise is worth to a person.
The reasons I enjoyed this novel and would recommend it. The character development is astounding, after reading this novel I know these characters, inside and out. Honestly, this book is relying heavily on the fact that the characters are the driving factor for you to turn the page because there isn't much else there. So they are lively, vivid, characters. These characters do seem to propel the story along so that you feel lost in their world. The beginning and younger years were by far my favorite chapters of the book. The reasons I didn't enjoy this novel. It is not a light read. It is a heavy, dense read, and often times over pretentious (a whole glimpse into a pseudo play-opera based on Antigone) that brought the whole flow of the book to a grinding halt. Simply because I found myself having to go back and re-read the zealously laden series of complex metaphors, but some readers live for that kind of thing, and if you're one of them, you will love this book. I personally found it a bit much and would have preferred Ms. Groff sacrifice the literature for a better tempo to the story, but that is just my opinion.Read more ›
18 Comments
620 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
If you want to read a book about privileged white people who attended ivy league schools and who have tons of time to drink and have porn quality sex, then dive right in. If you want a book about a real marriage between real people with real problems, then look elsewhere.
I found this book utterly pretentious. Lauren Groff wants us to know on every page--in every sentence, for God's sake--how very, very clever she is. Her writing stands in the way of the reader actually absorbing a story. For example, her characters are named Lancelot (Lotto) and Mathilde, and their dog is named God. So every time you read about them, in the phrase, for example, "God screamed", the narrative dream is broken and you are left wondering if you should make more of what you are reading than you are. Furthermore, there is nothing about the characters that inspires you to care about them. The choice to read to the end is compelled by the hope that something will happen that will make you finally care--make the laborious effort of reading through Lotto's pretentious plays worth it. Nothing ever does. Groff relies on Hollywood style plot twists that cast characters as either good or evil; doing things that are much more common in movies than in real life. There is nothing in these characters that a real person can relate to.
I read this because it was chosen for the Morning Edition book group. I'm sorry I did.
15 Comments
280 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
I should have known. Whenever a book is shortlisted for an award and garners almost-universal rave reviews, I end up hating it. I had to pick through the miasma, the sludge of pseudo-poetic language, to understand what the heck was going on. I read a lot, and I am an English major, but this novel did me in. The writing induced headaches and exasperation. Oh, where do I begin? 1. Use of [brackets], including some that are full, long paragraphs 2. Turgid prose 3. A "hero" named Lotto, which also happens to be the name of a state lottery). It's short for Lancelot. His mom was afraid kids would make fun of him if he was referred to as Lancelot. Hence the perfectly non-mockable Lotto. 4. One-word sentences 5. Repugnant characters 6. Absence of logic
10 Comments
155 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher (via Netgalley).
Headline: The first section (Fates) was a 2 or 3 star slog, but the second section (Furies) is unquestionably a 5 star read. Overall, pushing through the beginning was worth it for me.
Major Themes: Marriage, differing perspectives, secrets/betrayal
What I Liked: - I love the overall theme of differing perspectives, particularly as it relates to a marriage. Groff deftly shows how one person’s background can shape his/her perspective on events…sometimes ending up with a vastly different interpretation than others. - Lotto’s version of his life with Mathilde (Fates) seems fairly normal and even uneventful, but things completely turn on their heads once you switch to Mathilde’s perspective (Furies). So many times, I was left astounded at what had really gone on. - Though it took me awhile to get there, I had a very hard time putting the book down by the end. - This is a book that has me thinking and pondering and I feel like it will stick with me for a long time. - The writing started out a bit terse and I initially had trouble getting into the flow. But, as the story moves along, the writing ends up being absolutely glorious. I was highlighting like crazy by the end.
"They handed over spider plants in terra-cotta, six-packs, books, bottles of wine. Yuppies in embryo, miming their parents’ manners. In twenty years, they’d have country houses and children with pretentious literary names and tennis lessons and ugly cars and liaisons with hot young interns. Hurricanes of entitlement, all swirl and noise and destruction, nothing at their centers."
What I Didn’t Like: - This book started very slowly for me.Read more ›
3 Comments
185 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
![]({"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61S1x2qa8fL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[331,499],"https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61S1x2qa8fL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[230,346]})
