I believe this was a great book. It was raw and emotional. I loved it so much.

Go Set a Watchman is a literal masterpiece. I have never been so impressed with a book that I had extremely low expectations before. I thought this book was going to be an alright book with not much interest to me. With To Kill a Mockingbird, I liked it. I thought the book was good especially cause I read it in class and we got to the deeper meaning behind all of the book. I thought before I started reading this book that I wouldn’t be able to figure out the meaning behind the stuff the characters said. I thought I wouldn’t like it because some sequels are not as good as its predecessor, but I thought this one was better. To Kill a Mockingbird was from a child’s perspective so it didn’t have the full intelligence of an adult who had lived a little which the adult perspective made it easier to understand in a sense. In TKAM, Scout didn’t understand much as a child but she grew up and could figure things out more which made the reader figure it out. I like how Lee could make you think exactly like Scout like you were her.

I heard rumors about the book which made me go into the book hating it and only a few pages in I loved it. I couldn’t put the book down. For two nights I stayed up late and read it because I was so engulfed in the story. I thought the novel was excellent. It was very emotional and because I had read the first book I got real emotional at certain events in the story. I thought everything Harper Lee wrote was raw and came from the heart. I haven’t ever heard anyone say things like what was spoken in this book. Most of the points made in the book were things I agree on. The others were just points that are hard to come to terms with because they are true for that day and age. This century none of the things that were hard to understand are true. That being said a lot of the issues discussed in this book are still issues today, sadly.

I liked the flashbacks in this story. They brought me back to the first book. Harper Lee does well to make the adult Scout seem more mature than childhood Scout. I was happy she included a little of the younger Scout, though. Lee’s writing for adult Scout is different than her writing for child Scout and I was a little put off until the first flashback. It didn’t feel like Lee’s voice in TKAM until I realized that of course, the voices would be different; they were at different maturity levels. Not to says Lee’s voice wasn’t there, I am saying young Scouts voice wasn’t there (not a bad thing.)I think that shows how great of a writer Lee is; being able to voice a child and adult.

There is a lot of growth in Scout. She through the course of the story really learns a lot of things about the world she lives in. Her world basically gets turned upside down. She finds out that the world she grew up in was basically just a facade that her father created. The world isn’t everything she thought it was. I love how she can stand up for what she believes in and has a great voice about it. Scout made me happy through her character growth in the story. She really impressed me with the stuff she said. I feel proud of her.

I hate addressing drama especially when I know hardly anything about it but I am only saying one thing and that is: I am really glad this book was published. I know there was/is controversy around the story being released but I choose not to pay attention to it since it had already been printed and couldn’t be changed. I also don’t really care about publishing drama or any drama around the book as long as it was a good book. I was however scared that my impression of TKAM would have been crushed. If that would have happened, I might feel as though this book shouldn’t have been published or blah blah blah about the drama. I don’t know the whole story of the drama and I honestly don’t care because as I said I only care about the quality of the story.

This book was, to me, a big success. I love it more than the last. I think I still have questions about Jean Louise’s life after the story ends but sadly Harper passed more than half a year ago, rest in peace, so I do not believe there shall be another one (unless she is so epic that she can write from her grave.) I was very impressed with these stories but mostly impressed with Go Set a Watchman. I hope you enjoyed my review. Have a good day!

Star Rating: 5

Thank you for reading!

Read Original Review Here

This story has a vast perspective on youth and adulthood from someone stuck in between. It is an amazingly written novel. I liked the anger and the angst throughout the book. This is a perfect book for anyone to read since it is so relatable. I personally felt like I could connect to a lot of the context. I am glad I read this novel.

I like the conversational style this was written in. I kind of could imagine sitting next to Holden waiting for a train or something while he told me this story of him getting kicked out of Pencey. I enjoy books that are laid back and I think this book is a nice relaxing book to just chill out and read. It is a quick read if you don’t string it out as I had. I believe this book can get quite tiresome if you don’t read it in a decent time. It takes place over a two days and yes Holden does have a very eventful two days but you do have to read it as fast as it happens. Also, I do not understand how he even got all the things he did during the story done in that amount of time.

There is no real plot to the story in the most literal sense of rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. There isn’t even really an exposition since Holden is mostly resistant on sharing any information on his life before. Salinger was trying to go towards something with this book but there is no climax which I think makes a plot. Holden’s conflict is more with himself and accepting the truths about growing up. The story does have character growth and a eureka moment near the end but it isn’t very noticeable unless you pay close attention to details and read in between the lines. Other than that there is no real plot.

I understand that back in the era it was written in WWII had just ended and they wanted everyone to believe society was perfect, children were expected to do certain things, etc. I believe that Salinger was trying to bring attention to the problems with civilization at that time. The message isn’t really clear until the end. I think that is what made me not read this story at a decent speed. I didn’t get where the story was going. There was no conflict of epic proportions that would lead to a peak in the storyline. I do however think it is pleasant to have a book with a struggle more on the inside. I haven’t read many books with this different perspective.

Holden is a very relatable character. Even now in the 21st century, most teenagers can associate to what Holden says. He gets real about issues in aristocracy, discussing phony adults and phony teenagers just trying to be cool. Holden examines society’s rules and mocks them. He curses and disregards his family’s and societies values. He loathes everything about the adult world and wants to defend the innocence of the children. He thinks children lose everything exceptional about themselves when they become adults. It is a touching book about the purity of children and someone who wants to protect them.

In my opinion, this story was an engaging read. It does have a few elements that I don’t dislike I just didn’t necessarily appreciate about the novel. I thought it was a great book other than its minor flaws. I think it would have been a poorer book for what it was trying to say if the flaws were fixed and that is why I don’t dislike them. I hope you enjoyed this review. have a good day!

Star Rating: 4.8

Thank you for reading!

Read Original Review Here

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”

I ashamed to say this will not be a very long blog because one this is not a very long book and two I don’t really know what to say.

I thought this book was kind of boring. I had to read this book for school and it took me a week to read it but in all honesty, it could have probably taken an hour. This story is a play and it is probably a fantastic play but I wasn’t that interested in reading it because it was just boring. I thought some things were interesting and I loved how Williams wrote in loads of symbols and had a really tragic play exemplifying dysfunctional American families. But other than that I wasn’t the biggest fan of it.

I think this book is one for people with different tastes than me. I don’t think it was like that intriguing. I thought it was really well written but I didn’t like the story that much. I don’t believe that my opinion should deter anyone from reading this. This book was just not the story for me.

Star Rating: 3