Last year, I read and fell in love with the Mark Twain classic, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Though I had read the sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in eleventh grade English, I couldn’t remember a great deal about the story. This year, I finally sat down and read Huck Finn again, and today I’ll be reviewing my updated thoughts!

Highlights:

Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Jim

The characters that stood out to me the most in this novel are the titular character, Huck, his childhood friend Tom Sawyer, and runaway slave/new friend, Jim. These three jumped from the pages in this book, and, in true Twain fashion, kept me laughing throughout. The lies Huck and Tom spin are hard to believe, yet they seem to always hilariously fool everyone. Jim held my sympathy for the entirety of the book, and I rooted for his freedom along with the young boys.

Huck’s Character Arc

The aspect I love most about this book is how the adventures transform Huck from an immature, mischievous boy into someone willing to do whatever it takes to do what’s right through helping Jim seek freedom.

Depiction of the South

Twain always provides a great depiction of what small towns in the South are like and the stops Huck and Jim make along their rafting voyage are no exception.

Lowlights:

The Duke and The King

The chapters that primarily feature the escapades of The Duke and The King dragged on for me. Though they set up an important event in the book, I didn’t find them particularly interesting and couldn’t figure out why Huck and Jim hung out and traveled with them as long as they did.
(Note: It took me forever to reread this, so I may be missing information or can’t remember many details about these two characters).

Styling of Vernacular/Speech

Though I can understand why Twain chose to write in a few different vernaculars to emphasize different accents between characters in the book, the dialogue for some characters was difficult to read due to the way it was written and/or styled. I often had to go back and reread portions of dialogue to decipher what Twain was trying to make the characters say.

Overall, though I didn’t quite enjoy this book as much as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, I recommend this classic Americana read.

Rating:

Talk to me, Arrowheads!

Have you ever read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!

Aim high, stay strong, and always hit your mark.

-Allyson 😀