Freckles Comes Home

Upon first reading Freckles Comes Home, I did not like it and was rather disappointed.. I loved the book Freckles and have read it many times throughout my life and was hoping this book would be as good.. however, it was not.. even so, I decided to give the book another try and read it again.. this time it was not as bad as the first read.. actually, it was worse!

Why? There are many reasons although I will only mention three for the sake of brevity..

First, both characters and plot are skewed and drift far from the original story.. Freckles becomes bitter, cynical and sarcastic after his four year stint in Ireland and little explanation is given as to how this occurred.. more stories about how this occurred would have definitely been appreciated., and the Angel vascillates from being a superwoman to a silly selfish brat.. neither of which she was.. there is a name change for Freckles aunt from Alice to Ellen and her five children disappear.. as for the characters of Kathleen and Dick.. they are superfluous to the story.. you are annoyed by one and feel sorry for the other,. Also Freckles considered McLean as his father.. when he got to Ireland and was so unhappy he would have confided in McLean and would not have waited four long miserable years to do it..

The second point is Freckles injury.. as a member of the medical profession I was appalled at how he was treated.. first of all an injury as serious as a skull fracture would have found him taken to a hospital with such a life threatening illness.. also any injury occurring in water can open the door to infection.. they kept saying he had no fever and his pulse was steady., highly unlikely this., appears the author did not research this very well.. actually the entire book appeared rushed and not enough detail paid where it should have been.. at least in my opinion..

Perhaps the biggest problem I had with the story was the impossibility of the O'Mores not contacting Freckles family when he was so seriously injured.. this infuriated me as a reader.. anyone who has read Freckles knows how close he was to McLean and the Angel would know they would have gone to him as fast as trains and ships could take them if they were notified.. this was so totally wrong..

And third.. if you find something wrong with a story you need a plan to fix it.. so.. this story could have been taken in several different directions.. all more satisfying than the road taken.. best one to me would have had the accident occur earlier.. and have McLean and Angel go to Freckles and bring him home as soon as they could safely do so., and then he could have followed the Boss plan and develop his voice while Angel finished college.. and then comes happily ever after for both of these beautiful characters.. to me it seemed like Freckles deserved this after all he went through!

This book basically proves the axiom that very few sequels are any where near as good as the original story..

Had I not read and loved the original Freckles so much, could have rated this as a good read.. however, knowing and loving these characters as I do, I cannot .. so I rated it 3/5 simply because it included Rags!