The adventures of huckleberry Finn-mark twain

Took a little break from reading. Was deciding between Jonathan Franz's book and this, and finally chose this as it is such a well-known book and I've not gotten down to reading it. Upon reading it, I realized I might have enjoyed this a little more if I had read it in my teenage years. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a sequel to adventures of Tom Sawyer and in this book, we got a whiff that in the prequel, tom and huckleberry had acquired 6000 dollars. 

The beginning of the book was interesting but it got a little boring in the middle and then it started to get funny and interesting again at the end. Finn was a 12/13 year old boy who hated school and smoked pipes, and because of his no-good father, decided to run away by staging his own murder. During his run-away he met another run-away -a slave (Jim) of Ms Watson who had treated him kindly but whom he bore a little sense of resentment towards. So it was that Finn and Jim struck an unlikely friendship and with Finn determined to set Jim free from slavery. They got separated on one occasion when they went overboard after a steamboat came too close to their raft. Finn stayed with a wealthy and kind family who were enbroiled in a feud with another family. The family members were mostly killed but Jim and Finn were then reunited. Finn almost gave Jim up as he felt guilty for helping a slave escape but a sentence from Jim saying that Finn was his best friend in the world, prevented him from doing so. They continued on their journey along the Mississippi River to a state (I forgot where) where Jim could be free. They then met two frauds who pretended to be a duke and a king. Although Finn realized they were not who they claimed to be, he continued to act as their servant. The frauds were finally exposed when they posed as brothers of a man who had left behind a fortune. The part I loved most was when Finn came to Aunt Sally's (Tom Sawyer's aunt) home and posed as Tom. Alas, Tom came and after being briefed by Finn about what had transpired, tom posed as his own brother, Sid. There, they tried to free Jim who had been held captive by Aunt Sally's family, in the most ridiculous way. Tom Sawyer refused the easy way to get Jim out of captive and made an elaborate plan(from books he read) such as digging through the ground with knives, planting snakes, rats, and spiders in Jim's cell, hiding rope ladder in a pie and have it sent to Jim, etc. Jim lamented that it was hard being a prisoner because of these things that Sawyer insisted that he did, as this was what prison break was all about. I thought this part was really funny and tom's imaginative and adventure-seeking character really shone through in this episode. During the escape, Sawyer was shot in the leg by a gun and instead of feeling miserable, he was exuberated that he had acquired a gunshot wound. However, his condition deteriorated and Finn had to call upon a doctor (Sawyer again came up with an elaborate plan to bring the doctor). Jim was recaptured when he helped the doctor attend to Sawyer. Jim was finally released when Aunty Polly appeared and revealed that Ms Watson had left in her will that Jim shall be a free slave upon her death. his escape was thus redundant but had offered Tom Sawyer a wild adventure: not so much for Finn as he had just went along with whatever tom wanted. 

I'm not totally in love with the book and think it suits a younger audience. It was an entertaining read nonetheless.

2/5 - 9/5/2016