I re-read this for the first time since like, high school maybe? For obvious reasons.

I know this is a total childhood favorite for many people--it's not for me? I enjoyed it when I read it as a youth but it didn't imprint on me the way some other plucky heroines did. (eg [b:Anne of Green Gables|8127|Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)|L.M. Montgomery|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390789015s/8127.jpg|3464264].)

So, in anticipation of Watchman, I've noticed a lot of (white) people re-reading it and realizing that maybe it isn't the perfectly anti-racist book they remembered it being? Here's my hot take on that: a Southern white lady wrote it in the 1950s

So yeah, it is totally a story about a white girl learning an important lesson from the suffering of a black man, in a way that would feel extremely icky in a contemporary novel. (OK maybe not given the popularity of [b:The Help|4667024|The Help|Kathryn Stockett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346100365s/4667024.jpg|4717423]......) But! I still really did enjoy the re-read, and Scout's voice is so strong and delightful. There's a lot of sharp cleverness here, and a lot of frank talk about race and class and coming of age in the south.

Also, I mean, yes Atticus is a great voice for justice blah blah blah but also he is a total dick to a rape/incest victim? (Who is, of course, in turn, being a total dick to a disabled black man.)

Also, Scout's "not like the other girls" lifestyle is not very 3rd wave.

Still: overall, a lot of this endures fairly well.