Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

What an overwhelming and tragic disappointment. i was so looking forward to this novel, despite the warnings from critics and friends alike... and yes, family that reads automatically qualifies as friend, the same way a friend that reads qualifies as family.

It’s hard to narrow the grievances. Atticus is the most glaring. The wonderful lessons to love equally is tossed aside as he succumbs and touts racial slander as nothing more than logical fact. Even Scout, who pedantically rallies against him, agrees with his racial claims and only disapproves of his means, which of course she comes to understand. As a whole, it takes the embracing Southern culture found in To Kill a Mockingbird - where a few are bigots but others stand fiercely against them - and offensively slanders it with racist bias.

As for the writing itself: basic. The plot, which was terribly hard to find, seemed to be a feeble attempt to create opportunities for various characters to spout their moral views in long-winded, tedious speeches. The characters themselves were flat and unrelatable. Maycomb wasn’t even consistent from the original work, with the exception of passages lifted from it and rewritten. Examples of the inconsistency include, but are definitely not limited to, the claim that Atticus won Tom Robinson’s appeal and Alexandra never showed emotion, when - in the original, to Sprout’s surprise - she did when Atticus lost Tom’s case.

As much as i hate to say it, reading this was not worth the time. i should have listened to the counsel of friends/family.