As someone who hasn’t read Huckleberry Finn there was a sense of putting the cart before the horse and I think a lot of the clever parallels were lost on me. Having said that, this story is incredibly readable, paints broad strokes of the Antebellum South, and has a lot of arresting characters to enjoy. I do think the third-act twist was unnecessary and cheapened the message slightly but if this doesn’t win the Booker Prize I will be shocked.