Elwood is a young black boy from Florida who has spent his life watching the Civil Rights movement from afar. Just as he is about to begin college, he is swept up in a mistake that costs him that goal and instead sends him to the Nickel Academy, a reform school for problem boys. Upon arriving, Elwood finds there is little education to be had at Nickel, but rather a long, horrifying gauntlet of physical and emotional torture.

Do you ever finish a book and think to yourself, "what the hell am I supposed to say about that? How could I ever write anything that do justice for what I just read?" Yeah. THE NICKEL BOYS is awful and touching, stomach-turning and gorgeously written. The plot is totally straightforward until it's not, and that's where I cried. A whole lot. There's just no way for me to write anything worthwhile or coherent about this story, except to tell you not to put it off like I did and to read it immediately.