Go Set a Watchman Paperback – 11 Feb. 2016

I liked the ending, but the book overall is frustrating and lacks editing. Unless you've got particular aligned interests I suggest reading something else; perhaps the author's other book.The book "starts" half way through; its main themes are hidden until then. I found myself ploughing through reams of filler/scene-setting hoping that something would happen. Perhaps I am a spoilt modern reader, but this was published in 2015.Eventually things pick up, and almost make up for the dull opening 50% (Kindle). As a middle/young adult reader I found it compelling and evocative, with many hot contemporary themes packed in there – not surprising in an old setting in that part of the world. Despite that, this was a chore to read and I would have preferred an abridged version. The first half of the book, and many characters and anecdotes could be omitted. It's hard as a reader to know what's safe to skip.One positive I've taken from it being so frustrating is that's made it thought provoking, trying to get mileage out of good things. I've been thinking about it for longer than usual after putting it down. There are a number of hot themes packed into the interesting pages. Not only race. I just wish it'd been shorter. It would have been perfect for the Penguin Modern Classics series. If they edited it.

I loved To Kill A Mockingbird. Maybe my hopes were too high for this one. It starts out promisingly but is very disappointing. The second half is a long vague meandering argument implying Atticus is a racist. Then her uncle beats her viciously and she accepts this. It's totally disappointing and even disturbing. Don't bother.

This is NOT a sequel of "To Kill a Mockingbird". It is the author's first draft and she was told to ditch the story and advised to expand on the children's recollections of their youth. It is certainly not in the same league as it's companion piece - there are too many protracted arguments between the characters, and most of the participants come across as rather unsympathetic. As a curiosity, it is of interest, but I can't really see why the author allowed it to be published.

I’ve heard some negative things about this book but I can honestly say it made me think. I love the person Scout grew up to be and although I was initially worried about Atticus appearing to be racist I came to understand his point of view a little better about how you effectively oppose racist views. Sometimes turning your back isn’t the answer.Nothing much happens in the story but it is none the less a fascinating read with believable characters, especially wonderful outspoken Uncle Jack. I would recommend this book to anyone who has tired of chick lit and wants to read something really absorbing.

I read Harper's Lee's best seller "To Kill A Mockingbird" for CSE many years ago so I was anxious to read "Go Set A Watchman". I can understand why her publisher suggested at the time (the 1950's) that she was better off dealing with the flashbacks in this book which takes the main character of the book, Jean Louise Finch, back to the innocence of her childhood in the 1930's. The `1950's saw the beginning of the end of segregation and the tensions that appear in this novel were to blow up into violence during the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960's. Maybe the publishers thought that this book was touching on too sensitive a nerve and would be badly received.Certainly "Go Set A Watchman" is not an easy read, although I found it a compelling one. It amounts to an emotional coming of age. Jean Louise Finch returns to her birthplace, Maycombe in Alabama from New York where she now lives. She discovers that the main person in her life, her father Atticus, whom she had idolised has views on black people that she now finds repugnant. She now finds the whole atmosphere of Maycombe parochial, small minded and hypocritical and she is ready to explode. Some critics seem to feel that the novel ruins the image that they had felt the characters possessed in "To Kill A Mockingbird". I feel that the whereas the 1930's are viewed from the standpoint of a child, in black and white, the 1950's are viewed from the point of view of a woman of 26 in a far more nuanced way. I enjoyed the stream of consciousness mode in which Jean Louise's thoughts are written although it makes the novel quite hard to read at times. I was left wondering what a third novel set in 1965 might have told us about the characters in Maycombe. I certainly feel that this novel is a good read and I am glad that it was published, belatedly.

A very good but not a great book! Unlike Mockingbird it’s written in the 3rd person so we lose some of understanding that Jean Louise (AKA Scout) brings to the story. She’s now 26 and an independent adult rather than a child. I liked the fact that we saw the world through the eyes of a child in Mockingbird and we lose a lot of this innocent observation of an adult world. However, when, in Watchman, Scout recalls her childhood it works a lot better. I found her hero worship of Atticus a bit naive and a bit tedious but maybe that’s what Harper Lee intended.

Although describing a particular moment in the history of the South, I found the reflections on plitics, power, family dynamics and human nature more broadly universally applicable and highly relevant to this day and age. The storyline was a bit mundane and some of the dialogues felt too theatrical so that's why I haven't given it 5 stars. I'd recommend this as an essential read.

I was very disappointed with this. I think any critical acclaim surely comes from the reflection of it's fantastic parent book, "To Kill a Mockingbird".It seemed split into 2. A fairly dull and slow set of recollections from the returning Scout Finch, who now lives in New York. Then, in the second half, I felt I was being preached at by a set of characters and the rant from Scout just seemed to come from nowhere and the suggested reason just didn't ring true.I really wanted to like this book, having enjoyed its predecessor so much, but I wasn't even close.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' is one of my favourite books, and possibly one of the greatest American novels ever written. Harper Lee never published another novel even though she wrote drafts. This 'sequel' is nothing more than a shameful, unconscientious cash grab by a publisher who has cobbled together a novel from drafts that Harper Lee in her judgement deemed unfit for publication. Consequently everything feels disjointed and tonally uneven. You can make out that the author is not entirely satisfied with how the story is shaping up.If you want to ruin all your memories of the memorable characters from the original book go ahead and read it. You'll especially love the part where Atticus Finch reveals himself to be a racist. The style, limpid fluent and resonant in the original book, seems half-baked at times which is only to be expected when you realize that its publication was never really her decision. If you are a fan of Mockingbird I'd seriously advise you to give it a miss. Harper Lee was a proud, unbending person who never succumbed to the lure of money by publishing books she didn't think were ready. That is as unique as it gets. We shouldn't allow unprincipled corporate morons to tarnish that legacy.

Disappointment.. Dissatisfaction.. Dislike.The three adjectives I would like to use to review this book. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite books, I never in my life imagined Go Set a Watchman to prove so disappointing. The change in Atticus' character is so sporadic and his justification is utterly blunt; there was no sense of similarity felt between Atticus of TKAM and GSAW. However, I just liked the end and the message it sends- to stop being a bigot, to accept difference in opinions, to be stuck to your opinion(if you think they are reasonable) no matter what and to not let your views and opinions affect your personal relations.

Go Set a WatchmanNovel by Harper Lee, July 2015.With Harper Lee’s only other book an American classic, the publication of Go Set a Watchman was highly anticipated this summer. As you might expect, the novel has drawn a variety of reactions and responses.Jean Louise “Scout” Finch is a young woman in her twenties who travels from her home in New York City to the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, to visit her elderly and arthritic father, and her family. Times have changed since her childhood recorded in Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), and she is not so sure that she likes what she sees and discovers.Her visit is laced with tension because, as Thomas Wolfe has written, You Can’t Go Home Again. For Jean Louise, this is the time for the Scout portion in her to come of age. But the process is traumatic! Through a series of flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, the reader becomes re-acquainted with neighbour friend, Charles Baker “Dill” Harris (in Italy), and her older brother Jeremy “Jem” Finch, who has since died of a heart condition which also killed her mother.Aunt Alexandra, and Uncle Jack Finch (a retired doctor) interact at length with Jean Louise in the plot, and play significant roles. While Atticus Finch, the revered father of Jean Louise, does not play a major role, his influence is considerable and pivotal. Childhood friend, Henry “Hank” Clinton who lived across the street, now works in the law office with Atticus, and appears as a potential suitor. The Finch Family maid, Calpurnia, (whom Jean Louise sees as a mother figure) is retired in this narrative, and has a minor---but poignant---role.Picture the emotional struggle. When Jean Louise returns to the Maycomb that used to be familiar to her, the Scout part of her surfaces in her consciousness, along with her attitudes and remembrances. Things begin to crystallize for her one day, when she follows Atticus to a Citizens’ Council where her father introduces Mr. Grady O’Hanlan, who delivers an aggressively racist speech. Watching from the balcony where she sat, once upon a time, while Atticus defended one-armed Tom Robinson against a rape allegation, Jean Louise is totally devastated. Her world has crashed; her value system has crumbled; but most of all, her god appears to have feet of clay. Her moral compass no longer works. Her Uncle Jack explains it like this. “You were born with your own conscience, but fastened it like a barnacle onto your father’s conscience. As you grew up, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man’s heart and a man’s failings (they may have been hard to see because he made so few mistakes)---but Atticus makes mistakes like all of us.”When Jean Louise rants and rails, lunging verbally at her father, her hero, Atticus, remains quiet, controlled, and willingly absorbent of his daughter’s venom. And then he says to her, “I love you. As you please.” Later, after Jean Louise has become more her own person (as opposed to an extension of her father’s goodness), she approaches the old man with the words, “Atticus, I am sorry.” And true to the character we have loved and admired and respected in Atticus Finch, he replies, “You may be sorry, but I’m proud of you. I certainly hoped a daughter of mine would hold her ground for what she thinks is right---and stand up to me, first of all!”The book’s title comes from Isaiah 21:6 “For thus the Lord said to me: ‘Go set a watchman, let him announce what he sees.’” Jean Louise “Scout” Finch sees her father as the watchman of his day. Yet, somehow, with her return visit to Maycomb, and its initiation of all of the personal growth provoked in Scout, I think Atticus is saying to her, “Now you, Jean Louise, you are a watchman in your day.”But there’s another verse in Scripture that kept coming into my mind as I read this novel. It’s from Paul’s letter, 1 Corinthians 13: 11. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man (woman), I gave up childish ways.

True!Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee is nowhere near the excellence of her first book, To Kill a Mockingbird. But then, more than 60 years have passed between the first and the second novel. So, in a way, the Scout who is the protagonist of this book, like she was of the previous one, isn't just 20 years older. She's a lifetime older, which might explain why she feels so out of focus.Or maybe the problem is with Mrs. Lee herself since she's obviously not an author in the traditional sense, having only one tale to tell and nothing else.I also have an issue with the book's title, which is one of the worst I ever encountered.Regardless of the book's shortcomings, however, there is a citation here that has made it worthwhile for me to read this book, and I'm going to share it for all:"Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

Final impression:1st part of the book left a positive impression & I have opted to retain the 'first impression comments' at the end of this review.2nd part was rather a drag - many pages of lengthy conversations that Scout/JeanLouise had with her dad Atticus & her paternal uncle Jack Finch. Question becomes rather on whether her dad is the hero she thought of him to be. Comes the point of everyone's inner 'watchman' or conscience. Seemed a lot like adolescent tantrums of a 20 years+ than as any strong bigotry that her uncle labels it as.The word 'colour blind' is used by the author to describe herself at least in two places, seemingly to bring out her lack of racism 'in sharp contrast to' her dad's now a tad racist thinking as she sees it. What Atticus was to her in 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is almost her uncle in this sequel. 'Scout'ing around for someone who's words she can directly follow to the last letter in her life, seems to be her 'search'?!Summary: If the mature outlook of Atticus is what stole your heart in 'To kill a mockingbird', this book might disappoint you.Except for author's extreme reactions to the 'new' ways of her 'old tired town', the portrait of the small town is very realistic. Probably, as Indians of our generation who after seeing things change in our own lifetimes, have started believing that life does moves in cycles, & that what moves up comes down in the waves of life, like the oppressed becoming the oppressors of today, the ethos of the book may not appeal a great deal.Retaining the 'first impression comments' that I added here, at below 50% reading point:Just started reading this & already enjoying Harper Lee's signature writing & her ever present humour - sometimes obvious & at others subtle! Recommended read for the fans of her mastrepiece 'To kille a mocking bird' - 'Go set a watchman' is the return of Scout, now a young lady, to the 'tired old' Maycomb county, Alabama, & to her dad Atticus...