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Me: "What impacted you the most when you read To Kill a Mockingbird?"
Sis: "Let me think... Probably Atticus, he was a great father to Scout."
Me: "Is it just me or does he remind you of our dad too?"
Sis: "Mmm... oh, yes, definitely."
Me: "Do you remember that anecdote of me coming back crying from school because the boys had bullied me for not looking like them, and he sat me down to explain all about that? Atticus explaining race to Scout is so like what he told me."
Sis: "Haha, yeah, he did things like that with me too. I was so nosy and asked him so many questions!"
Me: "Do you think he would've seen himself in Atticus Finch if he had read this book?"
Sis: nostalgic sigh "Yeah... But he'd say he would've been stricter with us girls. Not with you, he only threatened you with dire punishment!"

The above is part of a long conversation I had yesterday with one of my sisters, fourteen years my senior and with more memories of our father than I, because I needed to make sure I wasn't imagining things and it wasn't the rosy glasses of nostalgia what was making me see my father in Atticus Finch. She confirmed that, yes, he had been with me like Mr Finch was with Scout, and he had been like Mr Finch with her as well as to the next youngest sister, to all three amongst his daughters who were the closest to him. My father was like Atticus Finch, and taught me all about treating people, not getting into fights with schoolmates, not sneaking into the neighbours' orchards, to be nice to the old ladies, to understand race and never allow others make me feel uncomfortable about mine, to not spy on the "village idiot," to love books, to not touch guns I didn't know how to fire, to fish, swim, care for my little animals and my personal patch at the orchard . . . He was my hero, and the only person that could manage an active, inquisitive, scrapes-prone tomboy with too many questions and opinions for her own good.

I'm not used to seeing anything from my life in a book, I don't think I've ever found anything this relatable in any book, so To Kill a Mockingbird is extremely exceptional in this regard. They say that when you don't know how to review a book, go for what impacted you personally and unroll from there, and this is it for me. My father is no longer alive, but if anyone were to ask me what it was like for me with him, I'd have said it was like the father/daughter relationship in this book.

I could also say that the story itself is beautiful if bittersweet and tragic at times, that the characters are so well-done, that I liked the POV structure of telling the story through a child's eyes, with a child's voice and child's understanding of the world, but with enough mature evocative power that you understand far more than Scout does through the words she repeats without fully grasping the meanings. For example, in the courtroom scene, you are told just enough to understand what Scout doesn't about Mayella Ewell, the white girl who accuses Tom Robinson. It's this kind of understated horror barely buried under the surface that makes the narrative so much more powerful, in my opinion. Scout is so innocent because she's young and has been raised to expect the best from people, but you know there's rotten things in Maycomb. She expects justice with a child's faith, but you know this can't end but in tragedy.

And speaking of tragedy, the only complaint I have is that I believe the fate of Tom Robinson could've been different. The miscarriage of justice should've run its course and ended in the penalty he was sentenced to, to underscore just how deeply flawed and racist the trial had been, instead of having Tom (view spoiler)[die from being shot by guards whilst trying to escape (hide spoiler)], because that somehow makes it look like the ending is Tom's fault. A completely innocent man should've had a completely innocent end instead of giving them an "excuse," so that didn't sit well with me. Although, when I think on it some more, I can see how that ending also does highlight how tremendously unfair the whole case was, just not powerfully enough for me.

In any case, it's the Atticus/Scout dynamics what will always live in my memory from this book. Wish I could talk to my father once again and ask, "What does Appomattox mean?" and get a lecture on not reading books for adults without his permission right before I fell asleep on his lap thirty seconds into his long tale about the America in his Westerns.