Customer Reviews:
Beautiful Novel
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those books that almost every single student was assigned to read in high school whether it be a real high school or one of those fictional high schools we all see in movies and television. Woefully, I was not one of those students. And since I was (and still am) a proud nerd and bookworm, I was really looking forward to reading this as soon as I entered high school. I was so disheartened when I wasn't assigned this book or Shakespeare or Catcher in the Rye; you know, all of those books that are supposed to be a staple of your academic high school life. So, I have tried to rectify that and thought To Kill a Mockingbird would be a great way to do so. And I was not disappointed.

I'm also weary of reading classics because I always think that they'll be difficult to read and I won't get through it (like Pride and Prejudice and Rebecca. Seriously, I've tried three times to read these two and can never get past a certain point every time). Or worse I'll get through it and realize that I loathed it. Which would then lead to all of those inevitable looks my fellow readers would give me when I say I HATED To Kill a Mockinbird. It just wouldn't be pretty. So, I put this book off for years. There was no reason for me to worry because To Kill a Mockinbird was surprisingly readable. I thought that it would take me like fifty pages to get into it, but from the first page, I was already entranced in Scout's world like it was my own. Getting into a book so deeply is what I love most about the magic of reading and that was really emphasized in this book.

The characters were all extremely real and I loved Scout, Jem, Dill, Atticus, Calpurnia, etc. Even the Ewells, who you aren't really supposed to like, were all layered and just leapt off the page. The whole situation: the race tensions, Tom Robinson's trial, Atticus' struggle to remain noble, were all the things that contributed to make this book not only amazing, but page-turning. So much that I literally had to force myself to stop a couple of times and savor the beautiful writing.

While many say it's a shame that Harper Lee never published anything again, I personally think that there was no way she would've ever topped the success that To Kill a Mockingbird garnered. Maybe to Lee, it seemed like this was the only story she needed to tell and she told it beautifully. To Kill a Mockingbird has become my favorite read of the year so far (tied with I Capture the Castle) and I know that this is a story that I'm going to re-read over and over again and pick up something new every time. This was definitely an amazing and enchanting novel.

Simply amazing novel
Harper Lee's book is perhaphs one of the most moving, touching nd genuinley charming tales in literature. The central themes, prejudice, honor and bravery, could come off as moralistic or dry in the hands of someless skilled, but Lee delivers with pure warmth. The grave trial of Tom Robinson (falsely charged with rape by the a family that is the epitome of 'white trash') is balanced with the voice and humorous insights of Scout, the novel's nine-year-old narrator: for all of the import of the trial and the town's divisveness on the race issue, we have Scout's insights, when watching Calpurnia cook, that "there may be some skill in being a girl after all." Each character is brilliantly brought to life, from the graceful Miss Maudie to the enigmatic Boo Radley,
but perhapps none more than Atticus Finch. Perhaps the most honorable character in literature, Atticus (an attorney) takes the unwinnable task of defending Tom Robinson because if he did not, "he would not able to look his children in the eye." Atticus does what is right regardless of personal sacrrifice. This wisdom and heart is immedialtey evident in Jem and Scout, who, almost insincitvely carry themselves with the same honor and sense of right.

But what makes this book great is not just the bravery in the face of hate or the dignity of the Finchs. What makes the book memorable is the charm and humor: the games the children played to coax Boo Radley out of his home; the children's keen observations of the adults around them; and the puppy love tale of Scout and Dill. With each page the characters and the setting come alive and cannot help but evoke a smile. This is a book to read again and again, revisiting just how wonderful it is.

To Kill a Mockingbird
The copy I received was filled with hand written notes throughout the text. I was very disappointed in this purchase.

truly brilliant
I read this in high school, it was the best book I had ever read. I read it again to my daughter when she was 11 and once again loved it. There was so much more to it than I remembered. It is such a stunning masterpiece on so many levels, this is one book worth reading again and again. My daughter and I have put it on our "books you must read in your lifetime" list (just four books long at this point).
This is a powerful book and one that will stay with you a good long time.

Brilliant, and a bit of a tragedy
I had a bad upbringing, as far as reading went. Most of my teachers let me read whatever they wanted, and the few that assigned anything to me took the path of the-most-boring-is-best. I therefore was made to read "1984", which was over my 14-year-old head, and "Silas Marner", which the whole class thought was boring and badly written. In the last few years I've been slowly catching up with those classics I should have read when I was younger. I tried Scott Fitzgerald (and decided after "The Great Gatsby"--which I liked--not to venture any further), "The Catcher in the Rye" which I expected to hate and liked anyway, "A Confederacy of Dunces" which had me rolling in the aisles, and even Jane Austen, who I enjoyed a great deal more than I expected. Now I turn to "To Kill a Mockingbird". It's one of those books that everyone but me has apparently read. So I guess it's time I caught up with everyone else.

Janet Louise "Scout" Finch is a little girl, during the events of the story. I got the impression that the author was imagining Scout as a slightly older girl, writing this story down for posterity. She has an older brother, and the two of them live with their father, a lawyer, in a small town in Alabama. Their mother's dead. In the summer, a cousin named Dill visits them and the three of them play together. Supposedly, Dill is based on Harper Lee's real childhood friend, Truman Capote, but that's neither here nor there. They are the typical rural children of the era, playing in the street, and spreading rumors and innuendo about their neighbors. At the end of the block there's a strange family with a reclusive son who's in his thirties, but never leaves the house or says anything to anyone, named Boo Radley.

Scout knows her father's a lawyer, and has knowledge of a few things with regards to laws, but she's never really experienced a trial or anything. A third of the way into the book, when you're wondering if it's ever going to really have a plot, kids start to call Scout's father a n----r-lover. Ms. Lee doesn't bother with the hyphens. It turns out that what they're referring to is the fact that Scout's dad, whose name is Atticus Finch, has been assigned to defend a local black man who has been accused of raping a white woman. In Alabama in the 1930's, this is a capitol offense, and he'll surely be executed if he's convicted.

So of course there's the obligatory lynch mob (one of the strongest scenes in the book) where Atticus faces down the less-than-brilliant citizens of the town, followed by the courtroom scene that's rather short, given that the trial of course only takes one day. I won't give away the ending, but the author confronts the obvious issues of racism and class in the 1930's south with a great deal more subtlety and nuance than I expected, and the ending, if a bit surprising, is also very satisfying.

I do have one negative thing to say about this book: it killed the career of what could have been a great novelist. At least that's my opinion. Most any author wants to think the book they're working on is better than the last one they wrote, and this thing won pretty much every award it could, short of the Nobel Prize for literature. It's one of the best-loved books of the last century. It's my belief that this success was a double-edged sword: on the one hand the acclaim was probably pretty heady, but on the other hand, how do you top something as successful as this? It's almost inevitable that a second book wouldn't win another Pulitzer. Anything less would be a step down.

Nevertheless, this is a wonderful book, truly great, and I recommend it highly.

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