Being Henry David by Cal ArmisteadMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
A teen wakes up in New York City and doesn’t know anything about himself, not his name, where he lives, anything. The only thing he has is a few dollars in his pocket and a book, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, so he names himself Hank. The story is about Hank finding himself and coming to terms of who he is once his memory starts returning.
What’s interesting is that the book in his hand provides something for him to seek, he goes to Walden Pond in Concord, MA makes a couple of friends, and manages to find shelter, food and clothing. While on the train there he read all of Walden (really?) and afterwards discovered he could recite passages perfectly. Amazing kid.
If you take out the references to Thoreau, which was more in the beginning of the story anyway, you’re left with the kid with amnesia. It was okay, not spectacular. There’s a bit of a romance and about runaway kids. It felt like the author was hoping to introduce young adults to some of the ideas of Thoreau, and a few other transcendentalists by this approach. Perhaps it works that way, the book would probably work better for a teen than it did for me in any case.
Oh, there were some hallucination scenes where Thoreau himself appeared. That was weird.
The audio narration was done well, no problems there at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment