Scan barcode
majakrk's review against another edition
5.0
Holy, holy moley, it was so good. As someone who had to do this with his own family, I really felt for Scout. This is something we are still going through as a society today. It stands on its own, but also as good as TKAM.
lar_iiious's review against another edition
4.0
I'm kind of shocked by how low the average rating of this book is. Especially since I like this book even more than To Kill A Mockingbird. Seriously, I think this book is really interesting and just a good book.
cemistry101's review against another edition
3.0
Please allow me to begin with a disclaimer. To Kill A Mockingbird is my favorite book. I read it for the first time, like many of us, in high school literature. I was in the honors class that term reading alongside the more well-to-do, predominantly white students of the school (class divides society in many ways that are often unquestioned), and I suddenly understood writing as a living substance extraordinarily exquisite. It is beauty that comes from themes, questions, risk, hurt, laughter, awareness, politics, faith, reality, hate, and love. I realized a book can raise one's consciousness to ideas and ideals never yet considered. For the first time I understood as a reader one struggles, rejoices, questions, decides, embraces, fights, agrees, and disputes. To Kill A Mockingbird touched my soul, cliché as it may sound, in a way that knocked me hard and laid me flat on the floor. I have never recovered. Every book I read, every book I rate, is placed in comparison to To Kill A Mockingbird. Following my reviews on Goodreads reveals that no book has made five stars in my ratings. That rating is reserved for To Kill A Mockingbird. I await the day when another book touches me as much.
Go Set A Watchman did not touch me as did To Kill A Mockingbird. However, I do not want anyone to read my comment only to jump on the disappointed bandwagon of woeful reviews that have garnered media space about the book. This book is beautiful. I am going to say this again. This book is beautiful. It is Ms. Lee's completion of the story of Scout Finch that needed to have its audience.
By now, everyone who follows the world of books knows Go Set A Watchman reveals Atticus Finch is a racist. Most reviews focus on this point and lament the loss of their icon...of their God. One reviewer I heard yesterday on NPR's The Takeaway stated how he felt incomplete with the ending because he wanted Atticus to say that all that was revealed was to purpose rather than a personal truth − that a happy ending was indeed secured with the reviewer's dear Atticus intact. I wonder if such reviewers cannot see the book except as a reflection of To Kill A Mockingbird. Have they placed upon its shoulders too much expectation and pressure? Now that I have read the book, I feel concentrating on this lamented loss is selfish of reviewers and, I believe, misses Ms. Lee's bigger point. The two Atticus Finch’s, the racist and the man who lives his life by justice, can co-exist. Fairness and equality do not necessarily co-habitate easily or cleanly in someone’s belief system. There exists justice and justice, right and right.
To read Go Set A Watchman requires us to reflect on ourselves. How exactly did we see our families when we are young? Was your dad your hero and God, as Atticus was Scout's? How many have experienced a wave of skeletons tumbling out of closets once the matriarch and/or patriarch of the family had died? All of a sudden, everything thought known about those who raised us is put into question. Did we accurately see what we witnessed? Did we see what we wanted to see? The truth is often hard to accept instead leaving us dazed, confused, and very often, angry. Do we cut off our family, or do we still love them when the truth is revealed and our heroes and Gods become human?
We must remember that no matter who Atticus was, and he appears to be a very complicated character (as complicated as any man or woman in existence), the way Scout experienced and witnessed Atticus developed her into the person she was — someone who did not run and who believed in equality. Should Atticus be chastised or applauded for Scout’s development? I think that is as difficult a question as the racial question in America itself. But, I believe in this book Harper Lee did what she needed to do. She made Atticus Finch human and birthed the rest of us into our own person to stand on our own two feet − and it was a bloody, violent, painful risk, but a risk needed.
______
Update 07/21/2018
An article emerges discussing a biography of Atticus Finch: Harper Lee, Segregationist (Cashmere, 2018, Public Books). The article exploring Joseph Crespino's Atticus Finch: The Biography bringing my above mentioned complexity to the sanitized democratic character. Read the article at:
http://www.publicbooks.org/harper-lee-segregationist/?utm_source=PUBLIC+BOOKS+Newsletter&utm_campaign=76ae6e73c1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_11_06_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d048c39403-76ae6e73c1-181024633
Go Set A Watchman did not touch me as did To Kill A Mockingbird. However, I do not want anyone to read my comment only to jump on the disappointed bandwagon of woeful reviews that have garnered media space about the book. This book is beautiful. I am going to say this again. This book is beautiful. It is Ms. Lee's completion of the story of Scout Finch that needed to have its audience.
By now, everyone who follows the world of books knows Go Set A Watchman reveals Atticus Finch is a racist. Most reviews focus on this point and lament the loss of their icon...of their God. One reviewer I heard yesterday on NPR's The Takeaway stated how he felt incomplete with the ending because he wanted Atticus to say that all that was revealed was to purpose rather than a personal truth − that a happy ending was indeed secured with the reviewer's dear Atticus intact. I wonder if such reviewers cannot see the book except as a reflection of To Kill A Mockingbird. Have they placed upon its shoulders too much expectation and pressure? Now that I have read the book, I feel concentrating on this lamented loss is selfish of reviewers and, I believe, misses Ms. Lee's bigger point. The two Atticus Finch’s, the racist and the man who lives his life by justice, can co-exist. Fairness and equality do not necessarily co-habitate easily or cleanly in someone’s belief system. There exists justice and justice, right and right.
To read Go Set A Watchman requires us to reflect on ourselves. How exactly did we see our families when we are young? Was your dad your hero and God, as Atticus was Scout's? How many have experienced a wave of skeletons tumbling out of closets once the matriarch and/or patriarch of the family had died? All of a sudden, everything thought known about those who raised us is put into question. Did we accurately see what we witnessed? Did we see what we wanted to see? The truth is often hard to accept instead leaving us dazed, confused, and very often, angry. Do we cut off our family, or do we still love them when the truth is revealed and our heroes and Gods become human?
We must remember that no matter who Atticus was, and he appears to be a very complicated character (as complicated as any man or woman in existence), the way Scout experienced and witnessed Atticus developed her into the person she was — someone who did not run and who believed in equality. Should Atticus be chastised or applauded for Scout’s development? I think that is as difficult a question as the racial question in America itself. But, I believe in this book Harper Lee did what she needed to do. She made Atticus Finch human and birthed the rest of us into our own person to stand on our own two feet − and it was a bloody, violent, painful risk, but a risk needed.
______
Update 07/21/2018
An article emerges discussing a biography of Atticus Finch: Harper Lee, Segregationist (Cashmere, 2018, Public Books). The article exploring Joseph Crespino's Atticus Finch: The Biography bringing my above mentioned complexity to the sanitized democratic character. Read the article at:
http://www.publicbooks.org/harper-lee-segregationist/?utm_source=PUBLIC+BOOKS+Newsletter&utm_campaign=76ae6e73c1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_11_06_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d048c39403-76ae6e73c1-181024633
emaciated_dragon's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
kimberlymcdermott's review against another edition
3.0
I read this with the idea in mind that it was an alternate universe (as recommended by a friend) and I think that made it much better. I connected with the grownup Scout and I felt like she was the most similar to her younger version than any other character. It's hard not to compare it to To Kill a Mockingbird, which had a stronger voice and was just richer in content. Parts of Watchman were really good but other parts just fell flat.
lkeelycarlisle's review against another edition
4.0
I don’t think this book could be read without TKAM having been released first - though that’s hard to completely say since I have read TKAM 20 times and so really it’s just impossible to fathom. It’s feels like a draft - lots of ideas that don’t seem formally tied together and no central plot. My heart ached during the fight with Atticus - I feel like I am in Scout’s skin and that is a pretty amazing thing that Lee created. I stand in awe of that.
agenender's review against another edition
1.0
Just say no. If Harper Lee wrote any of it, which I doubt, she stopped somewhere after the halfway point--there's really no way to describe how bad the book got at that point. Melodramatic drivel that made you want to slap every character (especially the one who slaps another character and we're supposed to think it was a good thing--trying to avoid spoilers). Seriously--50 Shades Of Gray level bad.
bookmarksandbrews's review against another edition
4.0
Finished...
...but not ready to review.
Needs time to simmer...
...but not ready to review.
Needs time to simmer...
saralynnreads1962's review against another edition
3.0
Hmmm. I liked it. It was much more nuanced than the reviews, etc. led me to expect. People are flawed and human; good for us all to realize this. I hope to re-read To Kill a Mockingbird and then re-read this sometime in the no-too-distant future.
booksnplantsnanxiety's review against another edition
1.0
I have no clue how this awful book won best fiction of 2015. I'm baffled. It doesn't deserve to be in the same realm as To Kill a Mockingbird, and maybe I had higher expectations because of the author. But I hated it.