Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (review by Jacqueline H. '18)

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've been yearning to read Go Set a Watchman for the longest time. A highly anticipated sequel of sorts to the acclaimed classic To Kill a Mockingbird, Watchman was released just this summer. I bought a copy last week to annotate and read, and I can now say that while this sequel isn't for everyone, it certainly has its perks. The novel characterizes the life of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, who returns to her Alabama hometown after a few years in New York. During her visit, the dissonance between her childhood memories and the reality of her town becomes clear. Disillusionment is a key theme in Lee's novel--Jean Louise realizes that the world isn't a dichotomy of good and bad, but rather a morally gray setting that people simply make the best of. Watchman is more realistic than Mockingbird. Although it is more somber, it is nevertheless poignantly written. While Lee's prose is incisive and delightful to read, there was a discrepancy to her characterization that I found disturbing. For instance, it was very difficult to connect the older Jean Louise to Scout in Mockingbird. Watchman also reads more like a rough draft than a full-fledged novel--and the ending wasn't as satisfying as I hoped it would be.

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Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead (review by Andrew R. '17)

Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A ballerina smuggles a celebrated Russian dancer away from his Soviet handlers and into the United States, where they have a tempestuous love affair; later, said ballerina raises a dance prodigy who himself experiences some painful romance, while all the while minor characters around them (the neighbors, the owner of the ballet company, more haughty defectors from the USSR) fall in and out of their own miniature romantic dramas. As a novel primarily focused on the way dance shapes the lives of those who dedicate their souls to it, Astonish Me sometimes seems to be taking place onstage, what with its preoccupation with beauty and drama and tangled romantic threads, rather than in the Cold War-era society it tries to recreate. That said, though, Shipstead pulls off the intertwining love triangles at the novel’s center with impressive success, and the resolution brought about in the last few chapters feels satisfying without coming off as too neat or too overblown. Fans of ballet, and probably of the domestic drama as a genre, are certain to appreciate this book, but to the wider population the tendency of Astonish Me to prioritize aesthetics over real character development might not be entirely appealing.

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On the Road by Jack Kerouac (review by Lisa L. '16)

On the Road by Jack Kerouac
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book made me want to throw on a denim jacket, steal a packet of cigarettes and hitchhike across America to wind up in a damp basement in New York City to crank out pages of leaky ink poetry on a typewriter. On the Road invokes a sense of nostalgia for the way America used to be, when the roads were full of strangers promising money at their brother’s house in California, and the good life was hauling groceries up a hill outside San Francisco, and everyone was mad, mad about their loneliness or their art or the American Dream or their girl or their drugs. Or all of it at once. Kerouac takes the hitchhiking words of the English language and throws all the vagabonds, the orphaned teenagers, the Midwestern farm boys together to make lines of beautiful metaphors and descriptions. This book is the essence of spontaneity and trying to create the purest form of art out of the whimsy of the human mind. It's gritty, dark, and hopeful all at once, and definitely one of my favorite books.

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Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta (review by Catherine H. '17)

Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jace Wilson is fourteen when he sees two professional killers murder a man in front of his eyes. He is then put into a wilderness survival program for teenagers deep in the mountains of Montana in an effort to lose the trail of the killers. There, he must try to live as Connor Reynolds while the police try to track down the killers. When he realizes that the killers have come to him, he must try to escape without letting anyone else get hurt trying to protect him. Each character in this book has such a unique and well-written personality and story that I couldn't help but like every single one of them, even the two murderers. Michael Koryta successfully unravels this story, allowing the reader to slowly become aware of important facts as the story progresses, and even in the end there are more exciting surprises. I thought this was a thrilling book and I highly recommend it for anyone to read.

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