James by Percival Everett Book Review: It Changes How You Read Everything Else

Rating: ★★★★★

"James" Book Review:

This book won the Pulitzer and honestly it deserved all of it. Percival Everett takes Huckleberry Finn, a book most of us read in school, and retells it from Jim's perspective. Except here, his name is James, and he's been code-switching his entire life. Speaking one way around white people, another way when they're not listening.

That device, that simple idea, completely transforms the story. Twain wrote Jim as a sidekick. Everett writes him as the smartest person in every room, performing ignorance to survive. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. Every interaction from the original novel gets reframed. Every moment of supposed comedy becomes something heavier. James knows exactly what's happening around him. He always has.

Everett has been writing for decades. Over thirty novels. He's one of those authors the literary world has respected for years, but James is the book that broke through to everyone else. Maybe because the concept is so immediately graspable. Maybe because the timing was right. Either way, this is the kind of novel that doesn't just tell a story. It changes how you read everything else after.

It's funny in places. Genuinely funny. Everett has a sense of humor that sneaks up on you. But it's also absolutely devastating, especially in the scenes where James is alone and doesn't have to perform anymore. The gap between who he is and who he pretends to be is where the whole book lives.

Dominic Hoffman's narration is incredible. He captures all the layers, all the performance of survival. You hear the shift in his voice when white characters enter a scene. That alone makes the audiobook worth it. Five stars. Genuinely essential.

If You Liked James, Try:

• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver — Another Pulitzer-winning retelling of a classic novel (David Copperfield), reclaiming the story by centering a marginalized perspective. Same literary ambition, same gutting results.

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty — A Booker Prize-winning satire about race in America that shares Everett's willingness to use absurdist humor to dismantle comfortable assumptions.

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead — If James made you rethink the stories we tell about slavery in America, Whitehead's novel literalizes the metaphor of escape in a way that's equally unforgettable.

  
  

From Luke Stoffel's Bookshelf

If this book review resonated with you, if you love a Huck Finn story, then check out my memoir How to Win a Million Dollars — a story about chasing impossible drea Learn More: How to Win One Million Dollars 

How to Win One Million Dollars and Shit Glitter by Luke Stoffel