From the Bookshelf of Around the Year in 52 Books …
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
No group discussions for this book yet.
What Members Thought
There's something subversively satisfying about reading a take on history that brings it down a few pegs in our collective memory. The Good Lord Bird treats John Brown and other historical figures irreverently (Frederick Douglass is skewered especially well), but also expresses great respect and admiration for Brown's cause and efforts. I found the ending wonderfully moving, and got that same feeling I have whenever I watch The American Experience, a deep sense of the immense impact that these p
...more
I really wanted to like this, but I really didn’t. It had gotten so much hype, and I’d read and heard so much about it, but it felt like a history lesson wrapped in a dialect exercise. I put it down several times, and only finished it out of a sense of duty. I’m really surprised that anyone had a strong emotional reaction to it at all. The story is engaging enough, but it moves slowly and with frequent repetition (as well as some editing issues).
This gets a shoulder shrug and an extra side of meh. I honestly don't understand the hullabaloo over it. It takes A LOOONNNG time to really get going (well over a third of the book), picks up for quite a while in the middle and then kind of limps to the finish. I liked Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad much more than this if you're looking for a solid novel about slavery. Railroad is much shorter, and much less long-winded, too.
...more
3.5
Dec 11, 2013
K
marked it as to-read
Dec 25, 2013
Martha
marked it as to-read
Jan 08, 2014
Kristina
marked it as to-read
Aug 31, 2015
Judi
marked it as to-read
Jun 12, 2019
Shannon
marked it as to-read
Nov 28, 2020
Natalie
marked it as to-read
Jan 06, 2021
Annalisa Sofia
marked it as to-read
Jan 16, 2021
Mary Jones
marked it as to-read
Sep 10, 2023
Melissa
marked it as to-read
