2 out of 5 stars
Dang, I so wanted to like this book more. While far from a page turner (kind of plotless, really), it held my interest enough to keep listening -- though at times, I persisted only because I was stuck in traffic and had nothing else to do.
That said, it feels wrong to be overly critical, since this was apparently a rough draft of To Kill a Mockingbird vs. a true sequel. From what I've gathered, it was written about two years prior to Lee's best-selling novel was published. From that perspective, it's kind of fascinating to read and then compare to TKAM.
Taken on its own, however, I would have enjoyed learning more about Scout's life between childhood and where this story picks up, when she's 27. It might have helped buffer the fact that she's not all that likeable any more. In fact, this precocious child of wise old Atticus Finch is kind of a self-absorbed pain in the ass to everyone around her, which doesn't play so well when you're an adult. I did enjoy the flashbacks (though they were kind of random) and some of the perspectives on civil rights, even though they got rather preachy at times. While it's easy to understand Jean Louis's outrage while you're sitting here in 2015, you can also see Atticus' perspective too, which seems to be that sometimes you have to take baby steps when you're trying to change minds and make it stick.
I missed Dill and really missed Jem, and, from a character perspective, I'm not sure why he had to be replaced by Hank. Ah well...another foray into the truth that it's hard to go home and sometimes is sucks to grow up. I should add that narrator Reese Witherspoon bumps this up to 2.5 stars on my scale.
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