Just finished The Nickel Boys and wow—I’m emotionally wrecked in the best way. Colson Whitehead doesn’t just write; he carves stories into your soul.

The pacing? Perfect. It’s a slim 200 pages but packs more punch than most doorstopper novels. The way Whitehead reveals Elwood and Turner’s friendship through sparse, razor-sharp prose had me highlighting passages like a madwoman.

That ending though?! I audibly gasped on my couch. My cat judged me hard. No spoilers, but Whitehead plants clues like breadcrumbs—when the reveal hits, you’ll kick yourself for not seeing it sooner.

As a Florida native, the Dozier School parallels made my skin crawl. Whitehead could’ve drowned us in brutality, but his restraint makes the horror more potent. The scene where Elwood realizes Nickel’s racism isn’t systematic but ‘indiscriminate spite’? Chills.

Pro tip: Don’t read before bed unless you want existential insomnia. 5/5 would emotionally devastate myself again.