Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Harper Lee had more than half a century to prepare this book for publication and yet chose not to do so. I think there is a very good reason for this. It simply isn't very good. It did something that To Kill a Mockingbird has never done for me once in more than forty years. It bored me. I found the characters flat and lifeless, and the whole thing seemed rather contrived. Any further debate about this manuscript's very doubtful provenance aside, the writing style just doesn't ring true. It seems like a second rate parody of the work of the author of To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't think I'm alone in this. One third of the reviews on Amazon are negative, and I just came from my local bookstore where, just days after its release, the book has already been marked down 40%. I didn't notice anyone standing in line to buy a copy either.The people who go on and on in these reviews about what a great book this is remind me of the visitors at a wake who comment on how lifelike the corpse looks. To Kill a Mockingbird is a luminous classic written for the ages. I doubt anyone will be reading this book a year from now..It is a very sad commentary that the author's wishes regarding it were not honored, and that it was published at a stage of her life when it seems highly unlikely that she could have actively participated in the process. She has been quoted as saying that writing anything else after To Kill a Mockingbird would have been pointless, on the grounds that her magnificent first novel could never be matched.. How right she was.