Friday #56, #46 The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The Friday #56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Join in every Friday and share an excerpt from a book you've been reading. Here are the rules:

• Grab a book 
• Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader
• Find any sentence (or a few, don't spoil it) 

**Be sure to post the links to your Friday #56 below!

Happy Reading!!

Series: N/A

# of Pages: 306

Publication: August 2nd, 2016
Genre: Literary Fiction/Magical Realism
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hellish for all the slaves but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned and, though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor - engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven - but the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. Even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

This is probably one of the most difficult books that I have ever read. Whitehead challenges perceptions of the Underground Railroad and the entire concept of slavery. I am thoroughly enjoying it; however, the content is making me read it a little bit slower than expected.

"Cora was acquainted with this squeamish quality of Loveys, but she did not recognize the other side of her friend, whatever had overtaken the girl and made her run. But ever slave thinks about it. In the morning and in the afternoon and in the night. Dreaming of it. Every dream a dream of escape even when it didn't look like it. When it was a dream of new shoes. The opportunity stepped up and Lovey availed herself, heedless of the whip."

What are you reading this Friday?