Saturday, April 12, 2014

Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup

Title: Twelve Years a Slave
Author: Solomon Northup
Pages: 2008 (first published 1853)
Challenges: I Love Libraries, Non-Fiction
Genre: Non-fiction, biography, Memoir
Edition: Hardcover
Source: Library

Description: Here is the harrowing true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in New York. He was kidnaped by unscrupulous slave hunters and sold into slavery where he, endured unimaginable degradation and abuse until his rescue twelve years later. A powerful and riveting condemnation of American slavery. (via Goodreads.com)

Thoughts: After watching the movie, I thought that I would give this  a try and it would be interesting to see how much of the book was used in the movie (and from what I can recall, the movie was pretty accurate to what was written in the book).  Maybe it wwas the visual nature of the movie, but I honestly felt that the book was tad dull and lacked the emotional depth that the movie had.

It also felt like somebody was telling another person what they felt about a particular event and not as engrossing as maybe hearing it from the person talk about the events; it felt like I was reading the transcript of a really amazing speech after seeing the video recording of the same speech online or in person.

Bottom line: I would probably recommend this book to those that have a strong interest in African-American studies prior to the start of the American Civil War.  Recommended.

Rating: 2.8/5

Pages for 2014: 5090

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