finished reading

I dragged my feet picking this book up because it's been so long since I read Huckleberry Finn and honestly don't remember much about it.  But I was wrong to drag my feet.  Once I started listening to the narrator, I couldn't stop!  What a compelling, engaging, harrowing story.  Ultimately it's a book of hope but it's quite a tale to get there.  Jim is an accessory character in Finn and there is much about the relationship between Huck and Jim that is explored in this novel.  The internal life of James is compelling.  I couldn't stop listening--the narration is outstanding.

From the publisher:

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.