Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - 12 Years a Slave

Because it was written in an older form of English, it took a moment to get into the rhythm of it. It helped having watched the movie first, which I admit I liked better than the book. Anyone who excuses slavery as something that happened because it was acceptable at the time needs to read this book to see there were people aside from the slaves themselves who knew and acted on their own moral authority. The “kind” slave owner is a myth to appease white guilt and fragility. Books like this are important to keep our history straight.

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writeasiread's review

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

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taylor1997's review

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dark sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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whisper88's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

3.0

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ruffian23's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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anxiousplanter's review against another edition

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challenging dark inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

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mikarala's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

It's hard to rate something that's not only a classic, not only a nonfiction memoir of someone's life story, but also centered on such a tragically difficult and important topic. I don't know if I can say this was a book I enjoyed reading, although I do think it was well-written as well as insightful. Northup not only conveys the events that happened to him, but includes thoughtful meditations on the moral implications of slavery and the seemingly contradictory dichtomy of slaveowners that Northup believed to be good people at heart that were incredibly affecting. The descriptions of the brutality towards slaves in this novel also made me physical sick sometimes when I remembered that all of the events in the story were real.

As a novel, it lacks a certain sense of narrative in my opinion, going from event to event and describing a lot of the daily life of slaves, but again, I realize this a nonfiction memoir and not a story. Hence my difficulty with rating it. In any case, I do think this should be mandatory reading for students in North America, and I am very glad I read it.

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