Books Via Ashley

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead Synposis Cora is a third-generation slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. One day, a fellow slave, Caeser, approaches her about running away. They do so by using the Underground Railroad, which in this story is quite literal. With a slave catcher on their tail, Cora is forced to flee again and again in her pursuit for freedom. Review This book won some awards and was included on several "Best of 2016" lists. The story itself kept me engaged. The author never promised a happy ending for anyone, so I was constantly on my toes, wondering whether the characters would live or die. That being said, I wish a few more characters had somehow miraculously survived, but I guess that would undermine the effect the author was trying to create. The Underground Railroad being a literal thing was a good premise to start with, though the author never goes into the logistics of it... Like how no one hears a train engine going undergr...

There's a trending hashtag on Twitter among authors and literary folks called #DiversityInBooks, promoting the reading of books by authors or about characters who are from a diverse set of ethnic or racial groups (aka: not white). Personally, I love it and always have enjoyed reading about people and cultures and situations that are completely different from mine. I think that by doing so, we create better understanding among each other as human beings. Diversity should unite us, not divide us. Here are three books that I found that are not only written by minority authors with minority main characters, but actually discuss what race is and what it means in the US today. Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng This novel, set in the 1970s in small-town Ohio, shows the struggles of the Lee family after the sudden death of their teenage daughter, Lydia. Unsure if it was murder or suicide, the book slowly reveals backstories for each of the characters until we find out what ...