Why I hated To Kill a Mockingbird

Yes, the title is rather self-explanatory. If I had a choice, I would never have read To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact, I would have never touched it with a ten-foot pole.

I hadn’t heard anything good about it. And now that I read it, I wish that I had never read it. The plot was stupid. There was little that made it engrossing. And it was actually pretty depressing when I thought about. After all, we’re just getting past racism right now, and guess what is on the required reading list; books about racism, the Great Depression, and other equally emotion stirring subject matters. To be frank, I am happy without the intimate knowledge of To Kill a Mockingbird, and I doubt that I’m alone in that respect.

Mini-rant one: To Kill a Mockingbird could have been written better. A lot better. I mean, the emotions and feelings could have been built up more, and played upon, and pulled out so we were sick of it, instead of being so dry and depleted people are gasping for some emotion, any at all, when they are through. Next, it is all written from Scout’s point of view, who has absolutely no idea of the emotional, mental, and physical baggage that comes with all of the events in the story. Yet again, we have the downplay of everything that is going on. Scout has absolutely no idea what is going on, when, if this was written from say, Atticus’ point of view, there could be more horror, anger, despair, and all of the lovely angsty emotions that make a good novel. Finally, you get all worked up over Tom Robinson’s case, and after it’s over, there’s still a good portion of the book to be read. Pardon my French, but what the heck? What the heck!! Even though the trial is from Scout’s point of view, you still get the whole this-is-unfair-and-now-I-am-frustrated-with-it residue, and you can’t get the SECOND climax in the book when Mr. Ewell tries to kill the kids and Arthur Radley saves them. This book could have been so better written, it really could have.

Mini-rant two: The project. Yes, I realize that there needs to be a project per a book, but you could have chosen a better one. It stank. No one is going to pay attention to each other’s projects because we all know that there is going to be a study guide per topic and therefore have no worries. It really didn’t help us ‘understand’ To Kill a Mockingbird; in fact, all it did for me was make me realize that people were really stupid back in the day. Sorry, but it’s the truth. The project was rather stupid and pointless and could have been better thought out. A lot of people could’ve used a lot more time to be more specific and given us a better understanding of whatever their topic was.

Mini-rant three: Why do we have to read this crud anyway? Why do we have to read dry, boring material that we can’t relate to in any way? Why couldn’t we be given material that interests us instead of what some old men decided that every darn kid in the state should read? We are no longer kids; take off the training wheels already! We have fascinations and manias for things! Why can’t you set us a topic? “Okay, I want you to read something that deals with World War I, It needs to be more than so and so pages; go!” We could read books that interest us, and could put in twice as much effort. And when and if we find that we really didn’t like that book we read, we only have ourselves to blame. The system is flawed, created for a society that no longer exists. Figure it out already!

So I guess you figured out that I really didn’t like the reading choice. Frankly, it’s hard to see who would. Take off the jesses, let us soar. We could do better. We could read interesting, riveting, emotionally books for a change. Because everything has to change, at some point of another. No system is perfect. Everything has a flaw. And yeah, I did break almost all of the rules for your essays. But this needed to be ‘said’, and besides, grades aren’t important. And I hate writing essays.