Andrea Carta Carta itibaren Sadda, Pakistan
Yes, I am just like every 13 year old girl in the world and I loved this book. It was an easy quick read that I did not want to put down. I instantly went out and got the second book because I didn't want the story to end.
An inside baseball look into how history is done, with Nelson eventually making the speculative conclusion that the real life John Henry was a short, 19 year old from New Jersey unfairly convicted by Virginia's post-Civil War racist legal system. This is all exceedingly interesting, at least until Nelson meanders for nearly half the book about the evolution of the John Henry legend in the 20th Century, which amounts to nothing more than a boring survey of history.
This was an amazing book. I highly recommend it. It made me laugh on one page and almost cry on the next. "My life isn't so different from yours. My life is utterly alien compared to yours. You and I have nothing to say to each other. You and I share the same story. I am Other. I am you. So I've offered here a few words about my part of the journey. We're all headed the same way after all. Whether we chose to walk together or separately, we're going toward night. I am lucky. I have the angels of words beside me. So many of us are silent" (p. 58).