Book Review: Go Set a Watchman

If Go Set a Watchman had been published before To Kill a Mockingbird as Harper Lee originally intended, then the novel would have been insignificant...meaningless even. Tom Robinson's trial would have just been a vague incident in Jean Louise's memory instead of the culturally iconic scene that it became. Atticus would be his daughter's fallen hero, but not ours. If Go Set a Watchman had been first, we would only know Atticus as a racist and we would not care; he would not have been an ethical role model, moral center of an entire novel, and a hero. While there would be references to Atticus' past in an effort to explain why Jean Louise's world is so shaken when she discovers her father's beliefs, we as the reader would not share them. The fact is, though, Go Set a Watchman was not published first, so Jean Louise's feelings of hurt and betrayal are our own.

image courtesy of Amazon.com

Go Set a Watchman is about fallen heroes and disillusionment. Jean Louise tries to reconcile how Atticus Finch, the archetype of morality and good, could be a racist, and that is what many readers of the beloved To Kill a Mockingbird are trying to reconcile as well. Even with all the hype surrounding the novel, I tried to reserve judgement, especially when it came to Atticus, thinking that there was no way a character could change that drastically in twenty years, and went into reading the novel somewhat in denial. When Jean Louise, who will forever be "Scout" in my mind, finds out Atticus is attending segregationist citizens council meetings, she thinks, "[He was] pulling something, [he was] there merely to keep an eye on things," a thought I, like probably many other readers, hopefully had as well.

The most painful thing about Go Set a Watchman is that this Atticus is still recognizably, unquestionably Atticus Finch. He is still a loving father, a good neighbor, endlessly reasonable, thoughtful, and giving. Regardless, his portrayal in Go Set a Watchman is still disheartening. I tried to explain it to my husband when he noticed I was becoming visibly upset after the first 100 or so pages... Reading this novel would be like if JK Rowling wrote an eighth Harry Potter novel set X amount of years in the future where Harry, an Auror, willingly casts the Cruciatus Curse against magical wrong-doers or, God forbid, Muggles, on a semi-regular basis. Fans of the series would not want to read that, regardless of whether Rowling was able to explain how Harry became that way as he grew older while making it consistent with his character from the first seven novels. It would be heartbreaking.

On a bright side, Jean Louise Finch serves as a moral compass in Go Set a Watchman. Atticus taught her well as she challenges beliefs that she knows are wrong. While not perfect, she has the potential to be better than her father and her hometown. She is also recognizably Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, the outspoken, precocious tomboy, but she is now twenty-six and still out of place in Maycomb. After living the past few years in New York City, she is unable to relate to the women in Maycomb, their interests, and their views on race.

I wanted to hate Go Set a Watchman, and I wanted to be angry at it for ruining the character that I have held in such high regard since reading To Kill a Mockingbird in Mrs. Tucker's ninth grade English class. The controversy surrounding its release would be enough: the story behind its publication is sketchy, almost certainly achieved through unethical means. Unfortunately, the book is good and its message, however painfully it hits, is important. Heroes can fall and, more importantly, that is normal. To Kill a Mockingbird is told from Scout's perspective. At six years old, Scout, like the majority of readers, have a bit of hero-worship when it comes to Atticus. Twenty years later, Jean Louise is seeing her father in a new light and stops the childlike hero worship that we practice as children when we become adults. It hurts, but it is part of life.

Overall, I give Go Set a Watchman a 7 out of 10. While it somewhat ruins Atticus for me, and I am sure Gregory Peck would agree with that, it is still a courageous novel for a young woman to write in the middle of the 1950s. Tackling the issue of white privilege without pulling any punches might not have been received very favorably had the novel been published closer to the time it was written. Perhaps it is perfect timing for the novel to be published, as our culture wrestles with the same issues Atticus did in the 1950s, settling our own watchmen to be on the lookout for our worst fears.

Book Review: Luckiest Girl Alive

Stopping a book a quarter of the way through to google what the premise is is not a good start to any novel; however, that is exactly what happened while I was reading Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll. I could not quite figure out why I purchased the novel nor what it was exactly about. Not a good thing.

image from Goodreads.com

Throughout the first half of the novel, I kept thinking to myself, why am I reading this? Ani, the main character of the novel, is a self-indulged, miserable woman who is engaged to a perfect, wealthy man whom she does not love, and when she looks back on her past, there is nothing good there either. Ani, formerly TifAni, is all about appearances and details. She spends the majority of her time working to ensure that no one sees what a phony she is who actually had to fight her way to fit in to the role of New York Woman's Magazine writer and overcome some terrible things from her teenaged years.

While I did not hate the novel, I did not truly like it either. I disliked Ani's character. She was snobby, conceited, and shallow...things she grew into after enduring a horrible tragedy in her teenaged years. What I did not quite understand was how she could become such a nasty person after witnessing what the nastiness of others caused in high school. One would think that she would try to better herself and not become like the kids who bullied her and many others during those formidable years which led to so much tragedy. 

Overall, I give Luckiest Girl Alive a 6 out of 10, with its only redeeming factor being that it does pick up towards the end. This is the second novel I have purchased that was touted as the next Gone Girl and both have fallen incredibly short of that label. At this point, I think that the only novel that can honestly be the next Gone Girl is one written by Gillian Flynn.

Serious Lack of Productivity...

School has been out for two and half weeks and I feel like I have officially hit a wall. After dealing with the craziness of the school year, all I wanted to do was nothing, and that is essentially how I have been spending the last three weeks....doing nothing. Sure, I have walked 4+ miles every day and done a little bit of cleaning around the house, but nothing super productive and it is kind of boring.

I have decided to change that today. The next few weeks are going to be a little crazy with a beach trip, yearbook camp, and AP training...all three back to back to back, but once those are done and out of the way, I am hoping to actually spend the remaining five weeks of summer being productive. And I am sure my husband will appreciate me actually doing something during the day while he is at work too.

I have three major things on my summer to-do list:
1. paint at least one room in the house
2. organize office/guest room so that it is functional
3. begin organizing documents for teaching license recertification

While I cannot really do the first item until we hit our one year mark in the house and the builder comes to fix the cracks and nail pops that have appeared over the last twelve months, I think all three are completely doable once I return from the three weeks of crazy.

Book Review: In the Unlikely Event

School is officially out for the summer, which means more time to relax, work on things around the house, and, of course, read. After a sixteen-year hiatus in the world of adult fiction, Judy Blume, who is well-known for her children and young adult titles, such as Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, Blubber, and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, returns with In the Unlikely Event, a hugely engaging and solid adult novel full of dept and humanity.

image courtesy of Amazon.com

In the Unlikely Event takes place in Blume's hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey during the early 1950s, when the city was shattered by three plane crashes within two months. The neighbors in the diverse, working class city are confused and frightened--how likely is such a thing to happen not once, but three times? Unsure of what is behind such a thing, many rumors begin to fly through the town...communists, aliens, another war.

Fifteen year old Miri Ammerman lives in Elizabeth with her single mother, uncle, and grandmother. She is the center of a large cast of character who tries to navigate this strange period when passenger planes fall from the skies into the center of their lives. Miri's uncle is a newspaper reporter and he gives firsthand reports of each crash, going back and interviewing everyone, and reporting analysis of the crashes. His first hand accounts are included in the novel, in newspaper format, which adds another layer of depth to the storyline.

In the Unlikely Event is a fully engaging novel, with a cast of characters that is almost too big, I had a lot of those, "Wait a minute, who is that again?" moments while reading. That was one of the major issues I had with the novel, as it was sometimes very difficult to figure out how each character fit into the story and what their background was. 

I give the novel an 8.5 out of 10 and I really hope Blume's talk of this being her last adult novel is just that...talk.

Book Review: Finders Keepers

I do not like scary things and for some reason, I used to think Stephen King only wrote scary books, so I refused to read any of them. My husband, on the other hand, LOVES Stephen King; in fact, The Stand is one of his favorite books and he buys King's novels like I buy versions of Harry Potter. When 11/22/63 was published in November 2011, David kept telling me how awesome it was, continually mentioning that it was more of a historical/science fiction-esque novel and there was nothing scary in it. I was intrigued, mainly because I find the Kennedy's fascinating, so I decided to give it a try...and read it in three days. Since then, I have read more of King's novels, and even gave It a try (could not finish it--nightmare inducing!). 

Last summer, I bought Mr. Mercedes for David as a just because present and ended up reading it myself after not liking anything else I picked up. I really liked the storyline and that it included so many elements of the mystery/detective genre, so I was super excited to learn that it was the first book in a trilogy.

image courtesy of Amazon.com

Just like Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers opens with a grisly murder scene; however, that and the return of Hodges, Holly, and Jerome, the heroes from the first book, are really the only similarities between the two novels. Where Mr. Mercedes was more of a straightforward detective/murder mystery, Finders Keepers is a literary thriller.

Rather than picking up where Mr. Mercedes left off, we instead meet Morris, the terrifying villain, and Pete, the teenaged hero. The two characters are separated by more than four decades and are incredibly different from one another, but what causes their lives to intersect is their shared passion for the writings of John Rothstein, a reclusive JD Salinger-type author.

The first third of the novel is pure and powerful storytelling, something that I am beginning to see is what King is fantastic at as I read more of his work. This part of the novel spans four decades, from the murder of Rothstein in the 1970s to the economic downturn in the US in the early 2000s to the murders accounted for in Mr. Mercedes. With the scene set, the final two thirds of the novel are complete, white-knuckle thriller. It is a not a mystery or a "who-done-it," as the reader knows who the bad guy is from the first chapter, but regardless, you find yourself on the edge of your seat (or in  y case, awake at 2:00am) as Pete desperately tries to save his family from Morris, all while Hodges, Holly, and Jerome are trying to save Pete.

Interspersed throughout the latter half of the novel are some truly chilling scenes between Hodges and Brady, the psychopathic murder from Mr. Mercedes, that seem to be setting us up for a terrifying final novel.

I give Finders Keepers a 10 out of 10 and highly recommend it (especially to David who needs to get in gear and read Mr. Mercedes as well).
  On a completely unrelated side note, I literally had to stop reading about 100 pages in, go into the office to grab a highlighter, and mark this line: "For readers, one of life's most electrifying discoveries is that they are readers--not just capable of doing it, but in love with it." Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone did that for me in sixth grade, but never have I seen such a beautiful way of describing it. This line is definitely going to be prominently displayed on my book wall when school starts back up in September, so thank you, Mr. King. :)