Review Detail

The Freedom Maze is a stunning work, the result of 18 years of research and writing. From it's endearing main character to it's slight fantastical time-travel elements to it's shining glory, Sophie's coming-of-age story, it should become a classic. It has such educational value and such touching and heart-warming characters and relationships that it sets itself in a category above and beyond your typical teen fiction work. The writing and characters will stay with me I'm sure for the rest of my life. I want to read it again and I want my children to read it when they are older.

Sophie has just come out of the aftermath of her parent's divorce, and as she makes her way through the scorching heat to her aunt's place deep in the heart of Louisiana and the South, she has no idea what a change she is in for. Her mother, who seems to be quite a self-absorbed and selfish woman, drops her off with her plain sister and her elderly mother, who is slightly reminiscent of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. She is also a prideful and selfish woman, and Sophie's personality is of the sort that crumbles under such scorn and humiliation. She doesn't have a voice yet, and she retreats into both new and familiar books to escape her present realities. Oh, how this aspect of her character resonated with me! One day, she finds herself wishing away her current life and wishing she could travel back in time, and through some fantastic circumstances, she finds her wish granted. Only--she has been transported back to her own family's sugar plantation and complicated, ugly history with slavery. And her part in this history seems at the same time insignificant yet extraordinarily important. Because she retains elements from her 1960's life, including her tan, she is mistaken for a runaway slave, and then accepted to be the illegitimate, colored child of one of the heirs of the estate. She is thus thrown into the life of a slave, and every bit of research Delia Sherman put into this story is woven within the details of Sophie's new life seamlessly. I cannot accurately portray what a fabulous voice Sophie possesses, nor can I convey Sherman's excellent style of writing and world-building. You just have to experience it for yourself.

What didn't work for me? Um, nothing didn't work. This is an incredible work that WORKS. I am so glad it has been republished because it needs to get into the hands of more readers and lovers of history. Put this book on your list and in your personal library. You will not regret it.