Book Review: Go Set a Watchman

If you have ever read Harper Lee's book, To Kill a Mockingbird, it's time to grab her new book (written in the 1950s, but just now published).  If you have NOT read To Kill a Mockingbird, well, it's time to get started, don't you think!?

Go Set a Watchman

by Harper Lee

Set years after To Kill a Mockingbird, Jean Louise Finch is now a 26 year old New Yorker who returns home to Maycomb, and her aging father.  The story is set during the 1950s when civil rights tensions and political turmoil are at their height, transforming every life in the U.S.

During her visit, Jean Louise finds some disturbing truths about her family and friends that shake her foundation to the core.  Jean Louise must figure out who SHE is, and break her idolization of her father.

I will warn readers about this book--it takes a bit to get into it, to really understand what this book is about. Lee takes her time setting up her characters and catching the reader up on Jean Louise's life since she left Maycomb.  Lovers of Atticus Finch will not be disappointed.  He has become even more poignant, wise, and patient, and while he has his faults, he encourages his daughter to be her own person and make her own mistakes and successes.

While racial integration is not the forefront issue in our nation today like it was in the 1950s, it is obviously still very prevalent.  You'd think after this much time, we'd get our act together, but that's why this book still strikes you to the core--truths we don't realize until it is spelled out onto the page.  Our innocence is shaken and Lee encourages us to find our own truths before we can live and fight for others.