Teresa S. (plumbo) - reviewed on 11/2/2009

Helpful Score: 1

A classic American story and the one and only novel written by Harper Lee. Somehow having escaped both reading the book in middle school, and seeing the classic movie version, I had been constantly running into references to the book I only partly understood. Eager to see what all the fuss was about, I finally sat down and read it. I'm glad I did, not only because I now understand the cultural context and references, but because it is a truly memorable book. Lee interweaves a child's perspective with the adults and other children around her without making her child characters less complex. Racial and class taboos in a small pre-Civil Rights southern town affect both white and black citizens. The pace of change is maddeningly and for one man fatally slow. Lee gets the southern culture right without making stereotypical or unsympathetic characters.

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