You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.21 AVERAGE
3.21 AVERAGE
Wonderful characterisations and captivating narrative, reassessing a familiar world with Scout. A lovely writing style but hard to follow at times (I think intentionally so, to mirror the coming of age clarity of the conclusion).
I may have got more out of it if I had had a better understanding of the context.
Not completely convinced by Atticus' development from To Kill A Mockingbird to this, but assume it is just a more complex presentation of his character.
I may have got more out of it if I had had a better understanding of the context.
Not completely convinced by Atticus' development from To Kill A Mockingbird to this, but assume it is just a more complex presentation of his character.
Wow. When I heard this was going to come out, I was so excited. And when I got my hands on a copy, I was even more excited.
It started out a little slow, but it picked up pace. It wasn't action-packed or suspenseful, but wow. It was really great. It's been such a long time since I have read anything with so much interesting character development and beautiful dialogue. This book was also pretty funny, to be honest. Scout/Jean Louise is an all-time favorite character!
I would recommend this to people who really enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird. It's hard to call it a sequel to that, so I guess it's more of a companion? I don't know. But I do know that this is really, really good. I'm so glad we got one more Harper Lee book.
It started out a little slow, but it picked up pace. It wasn't action-packed or suspenseful, but wow. It was really great. It's been such a long time since I have read anything with so much interesting character development and beautiful dialogue. This book was also pretty funny, to be honest. Scout/Jean Louise is an all-time favorite character!
I would recommend this to people who really enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird. It's hard to call it a sequel to that, so I guess it's more of a companion? I don't know. But I do know that this is really, really good. I'm so glad we got one more Harper Lee book.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Wow this is impressively bad. Definitely reads like a mangling of an earlier draft, forced out by whoever had physical access to the papers of a 90 year old who’d had a stroke.
Maybe I was expecting something worse because of the negative publicity surrounding its release? This was a great read. There's a timelessness to stories in which people realize their parents are human too, good and bad.
I finished it, but it was painful. I see why it wasn't published in her lifetime. It should have stayed unpublished.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
All throughout this book, I had it in my mind that I was going to give this book about only three stars. It has all the characteristics of a first novel (or rather, a first unpublished novel): it has only shadows of the author's voice, the characters are awkward shadows of themselves and the dialogue is quite winded, to the point of redundant. But for all of these faults, this is actually quite an extraordinary gem, if only because it complicates the white savior narrative of Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird and is an interesting reconciliation of racism and what it means to disagree with it.
This is by no means as outrightly a political novel as TKAMB. There are no long and drawn out court scenes, nor is Atticus particularly active in the novel. There isn't even really an explicit plot. The novel only lasts, at most a week, and it is all centered around one event: the dismantling of Atticus as Scout's hero.
New characters are introduced and old characters are lost. Dill and Jem are not present in the novel but are mentioned briefly. This is actually not as much of a loss as you would think, as the character of Henry (not in TKAMB makes up for them both). Uncle Jack is also quite fun in this book. I think I should recant what I said about the characters. GSAW does not make shadows out of the characters but rather, exposes them in very raw and quite awkward ways that TKAMB does not. Atticus is the same Atticus only different and I think that this is what unsettles so many about this book: Scout is no longer cute little scout and Atticus is no longer a hero. It's all complicated now, kind of like growing up. It is actually quite brilliant (perhaps of her agent, because it is possible that Lee never wanted this published in the first place).
One of the things that I didn't like so much is how long the dialogue dragged on. It was certainly interesting, but it was pretty stilted at times and I didn't enjoy how didactic it got. It screamed first writer mistakes; that is, detailing every single part of a real life dialogue, which wasn't so bad in audio form but would have been worse had I read it. Some parts were more enjoyable than others but I got the sense that the book was almost deconstruction of Scout and Atticus and less a novel in itself. It was about Scout discovering that her childhood was not what she thought it was (which is okay). I liked that because I think it's true to life and truly, if Scout and Atticus really existed outside of Lee's memories (most likely of herself and her own hometown) then I am sure they would have faced similar dilemmas. So I am in the minority of people who liked GSAW. Shoot me.
This is by no means as outrightly a political novel as TKAMB. There are no long and drawn out court scenes, nor is Atticus particularly active in the novel. There isn't even really an explicit plot. The novel only lasts, at most a week, and it is all centered around one event: the dismantling of Atticus as Scout's hero.
New characters are introduced and old characters are lost. Dill and Jem are not present in the novel but are mentioned briefly. This is actually not as much of a loss as you would think, as the character of Henry (not in TKAMB makes up for them both). Uncle Jack is also quite fun in this book. I think I should recant what I said about the characters. GSAW does not make shadows out of the characters but rather, exposes them in very raw and quite awkward ways that TKAMB does not. Atticus is the same Atticus only different and I think that this is what unsettles so many about this book: Scout is no longer cute little scout and Atticus is no longer a hero. It's all complicated now, kind of like growing up. It is actually quite brilliant (perhaps of her agent, because it is possible that Lee never wanted this published in the first place).
One of the things that I didn't like so much is how long the dialogue dragged on. It was certainly interesting, but it was pretty stilted at times and I didn't enjoy how didactic it got. It screamed first writer mistakes; that is, detailing every single part of a real life dialogue, which wasn't so bad in audio form but would have been worse had I read it. Some parts were more enjoyable than others but I got the sense that the book was almost deconstruction of Scout and Atticus and less a novel in itself. It was about Scout discovering that her childhood was not what she thought it was (which is okay). I liked that because I think it's true to life and truly, if Scout and Atticus really existed outside of Lee's memories (most likely of herself and her own hometown) then I am sure they would have faced similar dilemmas. So I am in the minority of people who liked GSAW. Shoot me.
reflective
This book really pins Atticus and Hank as a couple of villains and while Hank tries to explain their reasoning behind attending the meeting, Atticus simply allows Jean Louise to rip him a new a**hole and moves on. It takes a stern talking to from her Uncle to pull her back to reality and to help her realize that life changes. People change. The place that you once thought you knew can change in an instant. However, as one reviewer put it, Atticus's character is flat and one-dimensional. Without knowledge of the previous book, we know little to nothing about Atticus and so this villain card is pulled closer and closer to the front. The scene between Jean Louise and Calpurnia really broke my heart because you realize that, though Calpurnia spent her early adulthood caring for Scout and Jem, she's never been on an even playing field with the children and Atticus. Harper Lee was praised for her work in "Mockingbird" because of how progressive her writing is. This book seems to have pulled her back a few hundred years as Atticus calmly states that blacks have child-like minds and haven't fully adapted themselves to white ways. The once heroic Atticus Finch, the one who defended a black man after he is accused of a terrible crime, has been reduced to nothing but a racist a**hole.