Go Set a Watchman
By Harper Lee
I bit the bullet and decided to read the sequel for To Kill a Mockingbird. I had heard the big twist so it didn't slap me in the face as it might have with other people. If you haven't already read To Kill a Mockingbird, did you not have any English classes in middle school or high school? I originally read it in middle school and hated it because of the teacher I had that year. I reread the novel during the summer I married my sweet husband almost ten years later, and loved it.
The sequel takes place quite a bit later than the original novel. Scout comes back to her beloved southern town from New York. But when she comes home she learns that her loved ones have changed (or maybe it is that she has changed). Of course this issue pulling the rug from beneath you is that everyone is racist. While this book was written in the south at the time around the civil rights movement, or right before hand should be taken into account. But even at the time Harper Lee was stopped from this “sequel” from being published because they knew the moral compass of Atticus Finch being not what we all had wanted him to be. When Lee passed away this novel was finally published,and everyone (including me) ran to their local bookstore and picked it up. Sadly a cash grab for Lee's relatives that saw what a cash cow this book would be. But back to the book, plotwise in the end we learn that sometimes/always we need to remember that people are human, even those we hold to the highest of standards.
I think I am glad I read the book, just because it was interesting, but I don't know if I can recommend it per say. I would definitely not recommend listening to the audio book in the car with kids, the use of the southern twang and use of some racial slurs were too much, even for my ears.
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