Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

Title: To Kill a Mockingbird Author: Harper Lee Genre: Classic, Historical, Fiction Publication date: July 11th, 1960

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Synopsis

"'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hyprocisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle to justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much" (via Arrowbooks).

How I rate it: ★★★★★ (5/5)

My thoughts

I had this book on my tbr list for a while, so when a friend of mine bought it, I knew that I had to borrow it. And so I did. And I loved it (there's a reason why it won the Pulitzer Prize).

This novel, circling around the fact that you should always attempt to "walk in someone else's shoes" before judgind me, was really mindblowing. As you may have read from the synopsis, the story takes place in a small Southern town in the 1930s, where religion and racism still weigh heavily.

While I was reading it I was so 'in love' with Atticus Finch: he's, honestly, one of the most honorable and memorable characters in American literature. I loved his kindness, his inteligence and his class. I also loved how Scout seemed sounded so smart for such a young age, and how she was so angry at the social injustices. When it comes to the writing style, this is a masterpiece in terms of giving the characters voice. Harper Lee did an amazing job combining the first-person voice of a child with an omniscient narrator. It was so good that, while reading it, I barely noticed her switching between the two. Allan Gurganusus said that "the narrative is very tough, because [Lee] has to both be a kid on the street and aware of the mad dogs and the spooky houses, and have this beautiful vision of how justice works and all the creaking mechanisms of the courthouse".

According to Wikipedia, "the plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Alabama, in 1936, when she was 10 years old."

Ps: If you want, you can (and should) watch the well-received 1962 movie adaptation they made of the book with the same title.

Quote

Neighbours bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbour. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbours give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.

(Lee, Harper., 2010, page 307).