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Summary: Believe every good thing that you hear about this book!!
Review: This book is unlike any other book I've ever read and I'm only a 13 year old. Harper Lee is a genius. I truly enjoyed this book to the very last page. I highly reccomend it to anybody who is longing for a good book.
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Summary: This was the best book I have ever read!
Review: Although I was made to read To Kill a Mockingbird in my 8th grade English class, I have found myself reading it over and over. It has touched me so much, and it teaches that all peopole are equal, and no one is better than anybody else.
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Summary: I loved how they portrayed the young kid's observations.
Review: I loved the court room scene and the observations Scout made from living around the profession and it's teachings for so long.
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Summary: It changed my life!
Review: Harper Lee's book made me see people in a new light thanks to the quote from Atticuss "You never know someone until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
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Summary: An absolutely intriguing book by an intriguing author
Review: Anyone who is contemplating buying this book should absolutely not hesitate. In my opinion, you could not invest your money in a better book. Personally, I think that after reading it once, you won't be able to keep yourself from reading it again (which I would assume to be all the more reason to buy the book). Atticus, Scout, and Jem are wonderful characters that only aid a story that couldn't have been written any more beautifully than it was. I have no complaints and neither will you!
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Summary: It was good.
Review: I thought that Scout's thoughts were insightful. I think the personality of each individual charachter was developed nicely.
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Summary: The shaping of a conscience
Review: The power of simple, straightforward prose to narrate a "love story" from the eyes of a child. It is indeed a love story -- love for one's family, neighbors, and human beings in general, amid a society running amuck with racial prejudice. In the end, Scout's wasn't the only conscience that had evolved -- Maycomb's collective conscience had undergone a significant change as well. And what better way to reassure a child (or adult) than to know that "most people are nice, when you see them..." Brilliant!
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Summary: Harper Lee is Incredible
Review: This book is amazingly apt at telling about Scout's (I hate to say "loss of innocence"; it's so clichéd)...I guess you could say "transformation to womanhood." The courtroom scenes, the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) racism, and the symbolism are exquisite.
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Summary: Great Book!
Review: I had to read this book for school and it turned out to be one of my favorite books. The first chapter was boring and I didn't think I would get into it. After that though, it really picked up and was a very enjoyable story. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Untouchable in stature, intimate in its approach.
Review: Superlatives no longer mean much to this venerable classic, one of the best novels ever written. So I'm more interested in describing what makes the book work.Humour is one crucial factor. By never succumbing to the pretentious grandiosity that has plagued many a novelist since the form's rise to prominence in the Victoria era, To Kill a Mockingbird achieves an endearing relationship with its reader. Every character is vivid, with strengths and faults, and Lee achieves that difficult amalgam in first-person narratives presented as recollections: A mixture of an adult's rhetorical power and a child's keen, curious eye. The language is fresh and unburdened by the moralizing which frequently cripples prose narrative (especially books which deal with sensitive issues as this one does). Lee made a perfect choice in personalizing a socio-political issue. To Kill a Mockingbird is predominantly the coming-of-age story of Jem and Scout Finch, and the themes of racism, injustice, conservatism and the Depression are all the better served this way. Issues do not come alive except through the living, breathing experience of their participants and Scout Finch's particular take on the events of this book only makes those events gain in moral strength, not diminish. Boo Radley, Atticus Finch, Scout and Jem, Miss Maudie...the characters of this book have achieved an iconic status rare in modern literature. And it has achieved this not by making them Nietzschean uebermenschen, but by entering into their lives with fair, enthusiastic frankness. And to end off, this is one of only a handful of truly successful negotiations between the dramatic (eg. theatre, screenwriting) and the narrative (eg. prose narrative, filmmaking, folk storysongs) I can think of. Lee's dialogue is sharp enough, and immediate enough, that even if we pared this book down to just its dialogue and situations, we'd end up with a remarkably powerful play. As it stands now, it's a truly successful crossover, its dramatic situations and character interactions every bit as convincing as the engrossing power of its storytelling. I am all for challenging the canons of all artistic forms, but this one is about as close to perfect as I've seen a novel come, ranking right up there with the greatest of the greats. It has its weak chinks -- Atticus' misunderstanding of Heck Tate's point in the second-last chapter is befuddling, for example, but these are so minute that to dwell on them would be overkill. Thematically worthy to be called an American epic, this book never forgets the personal in light of the social. We should be grateful it was ever written.
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