Hm. What to say. Possibly we've (as in white people) learned a lot since the publishing in 2016? As he's an NC author, I wanted to like this, but a white man writing black characters had all the problems you'd expect. Too much reverence for the slave owners, slave owner's wife, the Bible and other stuff white people like. The main character was raised by his own mother, families weren't separated, and he waxed nostalgic about food he ate and the slave owner's wife's gifts while living in the woods - it felt off, downright idyllic, totally unrealistic.

It's not that he's a bad writer - this is fine as an adult boxcar children sort of adventure story as far as the traveling from SC to NY goes - but just maybe shouldn't have been this subject. The descriptions of nature are fine and there are things he gives more details about, like snakes, that you can guess he might have an interest in. That was fun. The characters and slavery are presented a bit too cartoonishly - but you could look at this as maybe a dream or best case scenario of slavery and the escape?? Idk why you'd want to do that though. 

The female character or foil needs a bit of work. Lots of odd mentions of her size - fatphobic possibly. I don't know what the purpose of that was. To keep saying she breasted boobily maybe? The rapes were glossed over as though because she had to do it to survive, it didn't traumatize her. Her main characteristics were: not terribly smart, latched onto the main character oddly early even after his abandoning her 4x, dreamed of and loved shining her floor. I would've liked to see a female character with more depth and substance. 

Overall, Kindred by Octavia Butler and Night Wherever We Go by Tracey Rose Peyton would be better reads for this type of historical fiction and depth of female characters. I haven't read Fire on the Mountain by Bisson to see how it stacks up (he's another white guy, I think) but that's about the alternate history if John Brown's raid had ended slavery.