I had such high hopes for this book, but I was so disappointed. My reason for not liking this is partly my fault- I went into it expecting Jim’s side of Huckleberry Finn, but that wasn’t the case, mostly. There are a few scenes in the first third of the book that correlate to Huckleberry Finn perfectly but at about 1/2 way through the second part the story completely deviates from the original.
I’m not quite sure what Mr. Everett was trying to convey in writing James. I understand it’s his reimagining, but I feel like he completely missed Mark Twain’s point. There were quite a few times I found myself wondering why he wrote a scene and why he felt the need to deviate so drastically from an American classic.
That being said, I loved seeing the inner thoughts of Jim. I loved how he acknowledged that white people saw him and other black people as objects and property and how he made it a point to treat himself and other black people like the people they were.
I really wish this were a story about Jim without the borrowing of Mark Twain’s characters. There were enough changes made to the plot that Mr. Everett could have easily done that and still written a stellar novel.