Common Sense and Twelve Years a Slave both have a powerful message behind them, even though there are many similarities and differences between the two persuasive books. While reading these books I would have to set my book down and take a breath because of how brutal and cruel the books were. The audiences for these two both target a large range of readers but different reasons for getting their audiences attention. Common Sense by Thomas Payne and Solomon Northup which wrote Twelve Years a Slave are both very inspiring writers and if you were to start reading these books you wouldn’t be able to put them down. Solomon Northup wanted to reach out to whites who thought that slavery was normal. This book was very brutal, abusive, and very detailed