I really enjoyed this book and the idea behind it, despite the sometimes dark subject matter. It has been a long time since I read Huck Finn, and it took a while to get back into the character and the situation. The main character of this book, James, has an entirely new (previously hidden) personality and seeing how this works in the alternate reality that the author created was enjoyable.
There are plenty of books looking at the horrors of slavery in the United States, but where this book is different is that it may have a greater effect on a new generation that is even farther separated from this period of history. Having characters speaking in clean and educated English where they so often speak in a different way in older books or movies – it may be a little easier for younger people to empathize with them and see them as humans rather than characters.
The book really packed in a lot of situations, and sometimes I thought that it suffered from being restricted to the timeline of Huckleberry Finn as written by Mark Twain. There was time to explore what was happening to Jim while Huck was having his adventures, but sometimes it felt artificial. But again, it has been a long time since I’ve read the original work and so I’d have to go back and re-read it. And I’m not sure that I’ll see any of the characters in the same way – which I suppose is one of the author’s goals.
Next I am reading Straphanger by Taras Grescoe.
