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Go Set a Watchman

Harper Lee

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By Jillian · 1 post · 33 views

last updated Mar 30, 2016 06:30PM

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Jul 18, 2015 Michael rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2015, summer-reading-2015, 20-books-of-summer

Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman will make you love and hate her literary agents.

It will make you love the agent who saw potential in this novel -- but in an entirely different kind of story. It was that agent who nurtured Lee and helped produce one of the great pieces of literature in To Kill A Mockingbirds.

It will make you hate the literary agent of today who found this manuscript and decided that what the world most needed was more of the story of Maycomb and a chance to check in again with Sco Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman will make you love and hate her literary agents.

It will make you love the agent who saw potential in this novel -- but in an entirely different kind of story. It was that agent who nurtured Lee and helped produce one of the great pieces of literature in To Kill A Mockingbirds.

It will make you hate the literary agent of today who found this manuscript and decided that what the world most needed was more of the story of Maycomb and a chance to check in again with Scout, Atticus and the rest. I won't go so far as to say that this one ruins the literary legacy of To Kill A Mockingbird (as others have), but I will go so far as to say after reading it, I wish it had stayed locked in a drawer and never seen publication.

An older Jean Louise returns to her home of Maycombe for a two-week vacation to spend time with her father. While there, she's romanced by an old flame and makes some discoveries about her father, her town and her childhood that unsettle her and cause her to doubt if she ever really knew any of them.

I suppose you could argue that Watchman is about a girl growing up and struggling to reconcile the image she has of her father with the reality of who he is or aspects of his life that he kept hidden from her. But given what we see in Mockingbird, the revelations about the town and Atticus don't necessarily add up in the final equation. I couldn't help but find myself hoping this was all some trick or plan of Atticus' for some reason beyond the obvious. But like Scout, I came away disappointed.

Watchman reads very much like a first draft -- and one that could have used a strong edit. There are sections that are clunky and difficult to wade through while others will remind you of Mockingbird. Ironically, these sections are those that flashback on the younger days of Scout, Jem and Dill. One section sees the trio playing revival after the various churches of the town hold theirs while another gives us a glimpse of what Scout would be like in high school and Jem's growing up to be the big fish in a small pond of the high school and town.

Had Watchman focused on these areas, it might have worked.

Alas, there are too many clunky moments in between to make this the companion piece to To Kill A Mockingbird that many of us hoped it would be. ...more

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Feb 20, 2016 Ashley rated it liked it

Go Set a Watchman, published in 2015, arrived to bookstores immersed in controversy over the rights of Harper Lee and the actual placement of the text in relation to To Kill a Mockingbird. Was this “new” manuscript a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird or a first draft of what became the famous novel?

There are details in the book that support the notion that Go Set a Watchman was a first attempt at writing about Maycomb. First, there are a few pages near the beginning of the book that are almost wor ...more

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May 28, 2017 Jocelyn rated it liked it

*The following review contains spoilers for To Kill A Mockingbird*

The only reason that this book was even published at all is that it was written by Harper Lee. This book was never meant to be published, and you can tell from the way it’s written. It’s 90% dialogue, there’s not much plot going on, the flashbacks are weird and make the whole thing messy, and it’s just generally a mess.

That being said, it was still good to read about Scout again, and I think her character stayed true. I felt like ...more

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Jul 15, 2015 Nikki marked it as to-read

THIS IS A DRAFT, NOT A SEQUEL. That means it is a bad version of TKAM a rather than a continuation of the story. Harper Lee altered the story and characters for a reason. This is only being read now because 1. It was found and 2. TKAM was a huge novel.

I just feel compelled to share that bit so that Atticus isn't completely ruined for us. ...more

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Jun 10, 2017 Larkin (Wonderfilled Reads) rated it it was ok

Shelves: historical-fiction, stand-alone, book-club-botm, harper

What's the word I'm looking for? Oh, that's right.... BORING. This book was insanely boring and I had to force myself to power through it. And that ending! What the hell was that? You get me all invested in this relationship only to just say, oh whatever. No, just no. ...more

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