YMMV / Go Set a Watchman

• Fanon Discontinuity: The unusual circumstances of the publication of Go Set a Watchman, with many accusations that the then-elderly and almost blind and deaf Harper Lee had been taken advantage of by her publisher and the executor of her estate, makes it quite easy to disregard its rather controversial aspects. Furthermore, there are discrepancies between the two novels: most notably, Tom Robinson is acquitted in Watchman, while he's found guilty in Mockingbird. This became even more justified after it was revealed that this was never meant to be a sequel in the first place; rather, the version put on shelves is a very early draft of the original despite being advertised as a sequel, arguably making this non-canon to begin with.
• Genius Bonus: While it's easy to understand the main conflict of Scout discovering Atticus's bigoted views, readers would benefit from studying Brown v. Board of Education and the 10th Amendment, which figure largely into his argument. Uncle Jack also has a penchant for literary quotes.
• Obvious Beta: The manuscript wasn't put through any kind of editing process once Harper Lee's publisher got their hands on it, resulting in several continuity errors with events she portrayed differently in Mockingbird (most notably, Atticus won the Tom Robinson case), and some entire paragraphs that she moved to it almost verbatim.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The book is considerably better-known for the controversial circumstances behind its publication than for its plot. It was advertised as a newly written sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, despite actually being a rejected early draft that Harper Lee may never have intended to publish (and it may, in fact, have been published without her full knowledge or approval). Once this became widely known, many readers accused the publisher of intentionally misleading the public, and possibly taking advantage of an aging author in her twilight years.
• Sequel Gap: 55 years separates To Kill a Mockingbird from Go Set a Watchman. May be slightly subverted in that it's not technically a sequel, but it was popularly promoted as one.
• Sequelitis: Critics and readers agree that this book is inferior to To Kill a Mockingbird. The only reason it might be worth reading is because of flashbacks to some childhood antics of Jem, Dill, and Scout that weren't included in the final version of To Kill a Mockingbird. If this book is instead understood as a first draft of the original, that makes To Kill a Mockingbird a sort of Surprisingly Improved Sequel, with a more developed narrative and more sympathetic characters.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Odds are you were quite confused to realize you weren't supposed to be cheering Scout on during her "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Atticus.
• Values Dissonance:
  • A book written in the '50s but not published until 2015 naturally is chock full of it. Even with the reveal that Atticus isn't a raving lunatic wanting to lynch black people in the street, his more subtle brand of racism is still outrageous today, and it's quite hard to accept the book's moral that people who hold such views can still be perfectly nice. Plus, Jack smacks Jean Louise in the face hard enough to make her spit blood, which is presented as perfectly okay since it was to get her to learn that lesson.
  • Scout would have been well within her rights to leave Atticus and Maycomb behind forever when it sinks in that Atticus is an unapologetic racist, and her town was complicit in letting black people suffer under oppression. She's supposed to be in the wrong, to the point that her uncle nearly knocks her out when trying to slap sense into her. That Tom Robinson in this timeline was acquitted is beside the point. It's more accepted in the 2020s for people to leave behind their families when parents are trapped in their racism.
• Values Resonance: In an odd roundabout way. Mockingbird has racked up some criticism that for all of Atticus' passionate defense of Tom Robinson, he also comes off as dismayingly callous toward the wider systemic racism all around him. Watchmen features that exact same attitude at the dawn of the civil rights movement in the 1950s, where it comes off as far less acceptable and defensible.

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