Hi everyone. I'm Rincey and this is Rincey
Reads. Today I'm going to be doing a review,
or trying my best to do a review, of Go Set
a Watchman by Harper Lee. This book takes
place approximately 20 years after To Kill
a Mockingbird. Scout is returning home. She
is living in New York City and she's coming
back to Mobile, Alabama to visit her family
as she does. Every year she seems to return
for about two weeks and spend time with her friends
and family back home before returning back
to New York City. This time, however, she
returns and her eyes seem to be open to the
way that things are changing in her town and
also things are not changing in her town.
She's learning a lot about her family and
their beliefs and it doesn't really line up
with what she knew previously. And so her
world is basically changing, her view of everything
is changing, and this book just deals with
that conflict. This is a book I went into with
pretty low expectations. I tried my best not
to be overly spoiled or to get too many opinions
in my head before I went into this book. Although
I did pick up a handful of things about the
book before reading it, which I won't really
talk about here. But I will say that I had
a certain perspective going in and just based
on the general vibe I was getting from people,
I went in with pretty low expectations. I
mean, this was meant to be the first draft.
It hasn't been overly edited and it's definitely
clear in that sense. There are definitely
some parts that could be tightened or changed
if this was properly edited. But that being
said, this book very much still has Harper
Lee's voice. There are so many passages in
here that feel so familiar if you're someone
who has read To Kill a Mockingbird, particularly
if you've read it pretty recently and you
have her style in your head. This book is
going to feel pretty familiar. It has Harper
Lee's wit and her strong, biting language.
If you've read To Kill a Mockingbird you kind
of know what vibe I'm talking about and that
is definitely still present in here. It's
also pretty interesting to see the parts of
this book that you can see directly influenced
or were put into To Kill a Mockingbird. Now
is this a book I'm going to be recommending
that everyone go out and read the way I would
To Kill a Mockingbird? Uhh.. Not necessarily.
But I do think that this is a good/interesting
companion to have to To Kill a Mockingbird.
If you follow me on Goodreads or on like Twitter,
you may have seen that I put up like sort
of an initial review where I just said "Your
fave is problematic." I said that like half
jokingly obviously, but also mostly seriously
because that is a thought that I had in my
head when I was reading this book. If you're
someone who holds To Kill a Mockingbird on
a pedestal and holds those characters on a
pedestal and you don't want to see any new
or different or problematic layers added to
those characters then it might be good to
just ignore this book. However, I think that
as readers this is a book worth reading. I
think it's important for your thoughts and
your beliefs to be challenged sometimes and
I think this book challenges what we think
of when it comes to Atticus and Scout and
Jem and all these other characters who we've
come to know and love and, in some cases,
treat as these perfect characters. Just like
you learn in the real world, no one's perfect
and everyone has problems and everyone is
flawed. And this book definitely explores
those flaws. In this book, Scout's in her
20s and I think that this exploration that
Scout goes through is an exploration that
a lot of people who maybe grow up in a small
town or grow up in a very bubbled community,
if they go away to college and then return
home I feel like this is an experience that
a lot of people go through. They return to
their home and they realize that not everything's
as perfect as you thought it would be, the
things that you loved when you were a kid
aren't necessarily things that you can love
and enjoy anymore. And even the people that
you love, you can still love them, but there
might be different viewpoints, different perspectives
that you're seeing now that make them not
quite as perfect as you thought that they
were. There are parts of this book that were
really difficult for me to get through, not
because the writing was bad or difficult but
because the things that were being expressed
were so problematic, but also so of its time
and also so of this time that it made me want
to throw this book up against a wall in the
best possible way. The way that some of the
characters in here talk about race and segregation
and progress and change and Southern living
and small town living all felt so 1950s but
also, with current events, felt so now. Sort
of observing this as something that was written
in the 50s and hasn't been touched since and
to see what has and hasn't changed in the
minds of some people is a really interesting
experiment. I think this book forces the reader,
or at least it forced me, to reconcile this
idea of someone having really problematic
thoughts and issues and beliefs and still
understanding them to a certain extent. That's
a struggle at least that Scout goes through.
I don't know if that's the right way to approach
this book. I don't know if that's the right
way to approach those situations, but I think
everyone has someone in their life that they
don't necessarily agree with but they love
them anways. So yeah, in the end I gave this
book a 3 out of 5 stars. It's hard to give
this book more than that, in my opinion, just
because its not like the best book ever written,
but I think it brings up a lot of really interesting
ideas and I think its a really interesting
companion. I think that this is actually a
more interesting layer to add to the characters
that are in To Kill a Mockingbird. Because
in To Kill a Mockingbird the Finch's are basically
like perfect people and in this book you realize
that they're not. And I feel like in To Kill
a Mockingbird racism and prejudices and biases
are so overtly clear and in this one they're
more like systemic and subtle and that's more
realistic to the way the world actually is.
So yeah, I kind of really liked it for that.
Even though this book was so frustrating to
read at times because of some of the things
that these characters were saying, I really
liked it that it actually said those things
so clearly because it really forces you to
confront these problematic thoughts that people
legitimately have. So yeah, those are my just
quick thoughts on Go Set a Watchman. This
is one of those books that I feel like I'm
going to be thinking about and wrestling with
for quite some time. I kind of want to re-read
To Kill a Mockingbird and potentially re-read
this at the same time because I think it's
just so interesting and such a new and complicated
and realistic layer to those characters that
I think I actually really liked. I know that
not everyone is going to feel this way. There
are going to be people who are really upset
that their characters were ruined. But I do
like that Scout had to wrestle with these
difficult issues and I do like that Atticus
was taken off his pedestal and I do like that
the depiction of the South was more realistic
and these characters were more realistic.
So yeah, let me know your thoughts down in
the comments below. I know a bunch of you
guys are reading this book right now just
like I was. So let me know what you guys thought.
Do you agree with me? Do you disagree with
me? Are you really upset by this book? Did
you like the book like I did? Yeah, there's
going to be a lot of opinions on this book
and I'd love to hear yours. So yeah, that's
all I have for now and thanks for watching.
