The last couple of years, Fall has been a particularly busy reading season for me due to the fact that a lot of my favorite authors (or famed authors whose works I've been wanting to read but hadn't gotten around to yet) release new books around this time and I end up scrambling in a harried attempt to get to each and every single one of those books — a feat that is 10 times more difficult with a full-time job and family obligations that oftentimes leave me with little time for myself. Yes, I know this is a self-inflicted bookworm problem (sorry / not sorry?) and I am by no means trying to elicit sympathy, it's just that when I opened up my book tracking app today and saw that I this was only the fourth book I've finished out of a (wildly unrealistic) goal of 13 for this month (yes, you read that right — 13 books for the month of September), I felt the need to vent, if merely to just get it off my chest. Whew! Ok, back to the matter at hand…
The aforementioned 4th book (out of 13) that I just finished is Colson Whitehead's newest release Harlem Shuffle. Whitehead is one of those famous authors whose works I've had on my TBR like forever, but for some reason or another, I haven't been able to get around to reading those works. So when I was offered an ARC of Whitehead's latest work, I of course jumped at the opportunity (even knowing his newest book would be markedly different from his previous ones). Going into this, I was excited to finally get the chance to "see what the hype was about" when it comes to this award-winning author. With that said though, while I did enjoy this one quite a bit and found it to be an excellent read in many aspects — the vivid, lyrical writing, the realistic and fleshed out characters, the wonderfully rendered atmosphere of 1950s / 1960s Harlem, witty and fun dialogue, the timeliness of the social commentary, etc. — what made this a 4 star read instead of 5 star is the fact that I wasn't able to engage with the story as much as I thought I would, despite my best efforts. This is more a reflection of my own tastes rather than any issue with the book itself — namely that I'm not much of a reader of heist and gangster stories and while this wasn't the entire focus of the story, I found it more difficult to connect with the story and therefore it was a much slower read for me. Regardless though, this was still a worthwhile read and one that I learned a lot from, especially with the historical fiction aspect and the masterful, atmospheric way that Whitehead captured the various nuances of Harlem and New York during that particular time period.
The aforementioned 4th book (out of 13) that I just finished is Colson Whitehead's newest release Harlem Shuffle. Whitehead is one of those famous authors whose works I've had on my TBR like forever, but for some reason or another, I haven't been able to get around to reading those works. So when I was offered an ARC of Whitehead's latest work, I of course jumped at the opportunity (even knowing his newest book would be markedly different from his previous ones). Going into this, I was excited to finally get the chance to "see what the hype was about" when it comes to this award-winning author. With that said though, while I did enjoy this one quite a bit and found it to be an excellent read in many aspects — the vivid, lyrical writing, the realistic and fleshed out characters, the wonderfully rendered atmosphere of 1950s / 1960s Harlem, witty and fun dialogue, the timeliness of the social commentary, etc. — what made this a 4 star read instead of 5 star is the fact that I wasn't able to engage with the story as much as I thought I would, despite my best efforts. This is more a reflection of my own tastes rather than any issue with the book itself — namely that I'm not much of a reader of heist and gangster stories and while this wasn't the entire focus of the story, I found it more difficult to connect with the story and therefore it was a much slower read for me. Regardless though, this was still a worthwhile read and one that I learned a lot from, especially with the historical fiction aspect and the masterful, atmospheric way that Whitehead captured the various nuances of Harlem and New York during that particular time period.
Though I wasn't much engaged with the story, I did like most of the characters — even the main character Ray Carney with his sardonic wit as he struggles to keep the two sides of his life separate from each other. Overall, this was a solid 4 star read, a book that I highly recommend! I read an interview with the author last week where he mentioned that he is working on a sequel to this book that would follow Ray Carney into the 1970s era, which I definitely look forward to reading. In the meantime, I need to get with the program and go pickup Underground Railroad as well as The Nickel Boys and other books from Whitehead's backlist. So many books, so little time!!
Received ARC from DoubleDay Books via NetGalley.
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