Book #88: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I was shocked to find that I'd never reviewed this book on Goodreads--or on here, I think. That means I haven't read it in the last five (5!!!) years, and that's pretty unfathomable. I am pretty sure I've read it at least ten times, and I don't think I can overstate my feelings about this book: I absolutely, deeply, truly LOVE it. Everything about it. I love Scout's naive, childish voice we get the story through and her incomplete perspective and her feisty, troublemaking personality and her total lack of embarrassment about her life. I love Atticus's determination to raise his kids the way he thinks they ought to be raised, and to teach them these very difficult but important life lessons. I love Jem and how Scout looks up to him and how we watch him start to grow up through her eyes. I love how much we learn about the town and the street where they live, and how well Lee creates the sense of place that allows us to envision their childhood and their entire empty summers roaming their street. I love how hard Atticus fought for justice in Tom Robinson's case, and how Lee didn't let him win, even though he should have, and how Scout and Jem learned about real life and how things were in their old sleepy Southern town. I love their childhood obsession with Boo Radley and how he turns out to be their hero in the end. I kid you not, I. love. this. book. It had been so long since I read it that I wasn't sure if I would still love it as much, and I forced myself to go slow and read every word and not skim to get ahead to the story like I sometimes catch myself doing. And I was reading with a smile on my face almost the whole time (except for the sections where I wanted to cry).

Whenever people would ask me what my favorite book was, years ago, I'd always say this one. And I'd let it fall into the background and forgotten about it, kind of. I also think I started to feel like it was too cliche to say this was my favorite book, because it's so many people's favorite.

But seriously. I think this just may be my favorite of all time.

Note: I read this again because I'm going to read Harper Lee's second book, Go Set a Watchman, next, for book club next week. I am a little nervous because people have said they didn't love it and that it changes the perspective of what happens in this book. But I won't let it. It's a totally separate entity to me. So here we go with that one.