Same Kind of Different as Me

Same Kind of Different As me, by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

Over the Top

Same Kind of Different as Me is a true story about Denver Moore. He was a victim of slavery in the mid 20th century. He escaped on his own and was taken under Deborah Hall’s wings to overcome poverty and homelessness. Miss Debbie, as Denver called her, was a religious, spiritual zealot who helped the homeless. Ron Hall was Deborah’s phony husband who was ‘coaxed’ by his wife to do nice things for the homeless. He complied only after his affair was exposed. Throughout the book, the reader is supposed to grow to like Ron, but it did not work for me. He may have learned to be less judgmental and prejudice, but he remains to be an egotistical jerk in my opinion.

The book is based on Denver Moore’s life, but there is an excessive amount of over the top preachy religious and spiritual nonsense. For example: God talking through Denver, a voodoo rain making aunt, Deborah blaming herself that Ron strayed into the arms of another woman and then to top it off, on her death bed she tells him she has her permission for him to go back to her when she dies. These are just a few.

I think the book should have been written exclusively by Denver Moore. We could have learned more historical facts that would have been enlightening rather than the nonsense we had to endure reading about Ron. Still not sure how Ron got invited to former President Bush's inaugural address! One can assume, but the author just threw that in out of nowhere, which validates my opinion of Ron.

For the very religious, there were words and phrases of godly wisdom that will do your heart good. But when we have to read through Miss Debbie’s gruesome and tortuous two years of dying, it had me believing this was way too much suffering that should have been ended long before. I know I am supposed to come away with all the godly thoughts such as, it is in god’s hands, not ours, but this story had me thinking just the complete opposite.

I always try to acquire something positive from any book I read, whether I enjoy it or not. With that being said, I liked the history Denver related to his readers, but there should have been more. A pearl to realize is that some people can improve their lives when given a chance. We all know this to be true, but I just don’t see or hear of many Deborah Halls in this world. She was an over the top extremist, even Denver realized that.

I would only recommend this book to the very religious and spiritual who could relate to the extreme views and feelings of Miss Debbie and Denver Moore. The book left me with mixed feelings, mostly about Ron Hall, and mostly negative. I was not left with pondering thoughts, but with distaste.

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Book Review by Mary Crocco
m.crocco@yahoo.com