Let’s start this out with I struggled with this one. Everett’s choice of picking a book set during slavery, choosing such a classic are bold moves. This bold move must be executed to perfection and to put it simply, I don’t believe Everett was a success.

Now that’s not to say that I didn’t find some portions of the book entertaining, thought provoking and I really enjoyed the last handful of pages.

I did like the attempt. I didn’t like that I wasn’t quite sure the motivation behind the retelling. Was it to make a big statement? A political or otherwise? Was it for entertainment, supposed to add a fantasy element to the story? I found some portions offensive. For example, the lack of care to any of the female characters. The idea that people who speak a certain way (referred to as ‘slave language’) are dumb.

The big reveal, as I’ll call it to avoid spoilers, was … for the lack of me wanting to even attempt to find a better word … stupid.

From my perspective, the whole point of this book was to give Jim a voice. Give him a name, James, and give him the human perspective than he was given in the original story of Huckleberry Finn. Give a black voice to a very white man’s world when this was written. If that was really the overarching point of this story, it’s a failure. James never became a fully pledged, in my face, human for me. His presentation came off flat. He didn’t come off the page as the loving husband and father that I wanted to get to know. We were told about the love of his family, but not shown it. We were told about his intelligence, but through dreams and presented skills.

We dabbled into discussion of hard points, but never went deep enough to sink in. This could be due to Everett’s straight forward writing style. Introducing all these philosophers felt they were used to ‘prove’ James was intelligent rather than dive deeper. Going back to my above point, the women presented in the novel felt like they were also ‘used’ to show James was a caring person.

Once again focusing more on using others for another’s gain, to push James’ story along, rather than showing us the full picture and giving life to every character presented to the reader. (Which was done for Norman … and a few other male characters…)

Overall, a good effort, but a shame. It was a 2 star book for me until the last scene where I finally felt we might be getting somewhere. Although I wouldn’t recommend this book, I would say it most likely might be talked about in reader circles. As a 300 page, simply written book, any experienced reader could get through this in a matter of hours. Might be worth it to have your own opinions if it comes up in discussion.

_{*** I’m sorry for the long review. I feel this is only a third of my feelings and I attempted to hold back.}