Book Review: To Kill A Mockingbird

The leather bound copy in my library

Brittany's Book Review of
To Kill A Mockingbird
By: Harper Lee


While in middle school, my classmates and myself were instructed to read To Kill A Mockinbird, one of the greatest pieces of American literature. Unfortunately, my class never truly read the book and relied on the cliff notes instead, thus allowing us to never truly understand and relate like Harper Lee wanted us to. Fast forward to more recently, my Kindle Fire has a bunch of classics that were recently put on it. In an effort to increase the number of good books that are read by me, To Kill A Mockingbird was loaded up and the rest is history.
Let me start by saying that this is, by far, one of my favorite books of all time. It is well told, relatable, and transformative. So writing a review should be easy, right? Oh man. Where to begin.
For those of you who barely remember reading the book or you spark notesed it all the way, let's go over a brief synopsis. The book is told during the Great Depression from the point of view of Scout Finch, a fiery, intelligent six-year old who loves hanging out with her proud brother Jem and their best friend and her "future husband" Dill who comes from a broken home and visits Maycomb, Alabama where the Finchs live. The three children, spend much time trying to understand and meet Arthur "Boo" Radley, a neighbor who has been locked away for years. Jem and Scout's father, Atticus Finch is the lawyer for the county of Maycomb and always stands by what is right. The book centers around a trial involving an African American man, Tom Robinson, who allegedly raped a white girl, Mayella Ewell. Atticus Finch takes on the case to defend Tim Robinson and presents evidence that shows that the girl was not raped, but that her father, Bob Ewell who allegedly saw the rape, is lying and is an abusive drunk. During the trial we learn that Mayella, one of the oldest of the Ewell clan is quite lonely and had made sexual advances towards Tom Robinson. Despite all of the evidence against the rape charges, Tom Robinson's all whit, male jury sides with the prosecution and Tom is sent to jail. Sadly, while in jail he is killed after trying to escape, despite promises by Atticus to help free him. After being terribly embarrassed in front of the entire county, Bob Ewell promises to get back at Atticus. For Halloween, Jem and Scout go to the Halloween Fair at the school and while walking home from the fair, they are attacked in the darkness. A brawl ensues and Jem is knocked out, but is being carried by someone back to their house. Scout follows quickly and is met by concerned adults and the doctor is called. The doctor informs them that Jem has a concussion and a broken arm, but will ultimately be okay. After this announcement, Scout then realizes that the person who had saved both Jem and Scout was the one person they had been dying to meet, Boo Radley. The sheriff arrives shortly after to find Bob Ewell with a knife in him. Attitcus and the sheriff argue about whether Jem or Boo should be charged and ultimately agree that Bob Ewell, being the town drunk, must have fallen on his knife. The story ends with Scout walking Boo home and then thinking about how things must be from Boo's perspective.

A still from the movie version

Whew. As you can tell from the just the synopsis, there was a lot going on in the book. The book has several themes that the Harper tries to highlight but race bias in the south, class inequality, courage, and gender roles are the stronger themes throughout the book.
Throughout the trial of Tom Robinson, race comes up as an issue again and again. Despite the fact that most of the county knows that Tom never raped Mayella, he is still convicted and talked about like he was always a pariah on society, while in truth Tom was a good, god-fearing man that loved and provided for his family despite having an arm that had been injured while on a job. In addition to the trial, there are a few instances where Scout and Jem observe the racial inequalities. One of those instances is when Scout and Jem visit Calpurnia's church, during the heat of the trial, on a Sunday while Attitcus is away. While with Calpurnia, the Finch family's maid, a member of the congregation gets upset that Calpurnia would think about bringing white children to a black church. Despite a very heated discussion, members of the congregation come to Calpurnia and the Finch children's defense and accept them with open arms.

Harper Lee with friend Truman Capote

Class inequality is always prevalent due to the timing of the book, the Great Depression, as well as general poverty in rural Alabama. Despite the Ewell's being considered pariahs of society, all of their children live in terrible conditions, and false allegations are what led to Tom Robinson dying, Scout and Jem are reminded to keep in mind that special rules and instances that the Ewell's have applied to them are to help their family. While everyone knows that Bob Ewell is a raging alcoholic and abuses his children, people try to look the other way and say that it is part of their family or class.
Courage is a strong theme throughout the book, mainly seen through Atticus. Despite knowing that his chances were slim at freeing Tom Robinson, Atticus fought and believed that Tom would go free. When the mad dog was stumbling down the street, Atticus takes the gun and takes down the mad dog in the middle of the street as the dog starts galloping towards him. He is strong, courageous, fights for what is right. Both Jem and Scout idolize him and his ability to fight for the small people.
Finally, one of the regular themes throughout the book are gender roles. Scout, an intelligent tom-boy who fights for her family's honor in the school yard on more than a few instances, has trouble reconciling her desire to be one of the boys and growing up to be a woman. Despite her dislike of all things female. During the trial, Atticus's sister is sent to stay with the Finch's to make sure that they are taken care of, but she takes it upon herself to make sure that Scout is growing up to be a fine young lady.
All in all, the book and the many themes it contains lets the reader feel like they are standing in Scout's shoes and experiencing all of the drama and day-to-day activities of a Great Depression era, southern rural town, all while growing up all over again. This books is a required reread for everyone if you haven't read it since you were in school. You will find new things you missed and being not forced to read the book lets you open up and truly experience the greatness that Harper managed to capture. If you happened to cliff note the book in school, you simply must read it and you will be happy you did.

Puppy kisses

Underwater dog photos are the best! 

Hurray! We're so close to summer that it seems like it's 80 degrees in Seattle. What? Oh. It is 80 degrees out. Huh. Well good news readers...SUMMER CAME EARLY TO SEATTLE! (Talk about a sentence no one thought they'd read)
So, how have things been with our little family? Well, my husband is working for our family friend (And one of my ex-employers) with her business which is corporate housing. He's really been having a lot of fun and he's got to scope out a lot of apartments in the Seattle area. This week he'll be visiting one of the apartment complexes that we've been looking at moving to once he starts school in the Fall. He's going to tell me his thoughts and let me know if he thinks it will work for our little family.

Keep reading, friends!

My days have been a bit of the same old, same old. We've been training Juno, our new puppy, who is learning so fast. My time on weekdays is spent mainly in Seattle, as that is where my office is. But something exciting did happen recently...our company website is finally up. It needs a lot of tweaks and fixing, all of which is planned for this weekend, but it's finalyl up. You can check it out by clicking here. The page is beautiful, minus the fixes that need to happen, and it is wonderful to see the site connected to the domain. And I really love sharing it with everyone.
Recently, mainly due to my hour bus rides each day, my book consumption has really gone up. So, in response to this, I will start posting book reviews of some of the great and not so great books that have been gobbled up by me.
All in all, life has been a little busy but full of tons of puppy kisses. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Brittany! Where have you been?!

Again, let me apologize and completely blame my absence on my husband. It's not his fault at all, but it's nice to blame someone. Where in the world have I been? Well, all over Washington state, to be honest. Let's start from the beginning

St. James's Cathedral on a beautiful Seattle day

In my last post I mentioned that my husband had a job. He actually ended up with a contract to do the job for a short time and they decided not to renew his contract. Obviously this was really sad because it meant that we were looking at a longer stay with my in-laws. As hard as it was on me it was even harder on my husband, but I'll refrain from discussing that on here. Due to the hardships we've had and the difficulty my husband has had at finding a job, my husband has decided to go to a local college and get his Associate's in Nursing. He's really excited to be heading back to school in the Fall and, honestly, it's hard to hide my excitement too. It will be really nice to see him happy and fulfilled.

Hurricane Ridge (Alt. 5242 ft)

But to make him feel better about the whole job thing (who wouldn't be bummed out), I planned a weekend trip in one of his favorite places: Olympic National Forest. A cabin, which was right next to the line with the forest, was rented from a very sweet and lovely couple. On Friday we drove out to the cabin, checked-in and relaxed. A full evening of food, reading, talking and relaxing was already starting to completely relax me. Saturday the three of us, Sasha (our puppy), my husband and myself set ouf for the hour or so drive to Port Angeles. My husband really wanted to show me Hurricane Ridge so we went into the forest and drove up the windy mountain road to the top of Hurricane Ridge. And it was gorgeous. Once you got past the huge snow pack around us. It was an amazing place to be, though. Sasha, of course, didn't really care for it. Although she did eat some snow. After that we decided to get back to sea level so we drove from the mountains to the ocean.

Cutest little swimmer ever! 

Port Angeles, if you get a chance to go, is a really cute town. If we'd had the capabilities (aka not have a dog) and the time to explore the city more would be amazing, but we had fun with the places we could go. Which just happened to be the beach with a dog that loves to swim. She. Loved. It. My husband would throw the sticks in the water, she'd go after it and bring it back. She was having the greatest time of her life. Playing in the water, splashing around, enjoying the sunshine. All in all, Port Angeles was wonderful. We had a lot of fun, but Sasha had so much more. After we were done playing, we drove back to the cabin for another evening of sublime relaxation and preparing for the next day's drive back to the Seattle area. The weekend was amazingly relaxing and it was extremely difficult to come back to the house and head to work on Monday. But by Wednesday we'd had a bit of a surprise. Sasha had somehow managed to get a tick. Thankfully it was just one and we got it out, but it scared us a little (pssh. A lot.). Poor Sasha had to have a bath an then get this stuff she didn't really care for on her back. And my amazing husband cleaned the bedroom to make sure that no one was going to get a tick if they were in the room. Thankfully, we haven't seen another tick and the one that she did have was extremely tiny. 

Oh hai there Juno, you little cutie!

So this last weekend, after a full week of work after a relaxing weekend, we did something very not relaxing. We got another dog. We drove almost three hours from Seattle to Wenatchee with Sasha in the car, picked up Juno, our new puppy, and then drove back to Seattle with both dogs. I was so happy to be back at our house on Saturday. Sunday, though, was spent with her meeting our families, getting to know Sasha, building a crate, rearranging our room entirely and settling into having a new member of our family. Last night was the first night of crate training and little Juno was not a fan. She had to get up twice and cried for awhile after she was first put in the crate. She will get better at it, though. I believe in her. 

Last post I mentioned that my husband and I are starting a business. That's still true. We had to hold off, though, because the computer that had everything business related on it nearly died. And right now the hardrive in that computer is barely limping along. My husband and I are picking out a new computer for me once payday comes along. Once we have the new computer I will be able to finish working on the website and get it up (finally). 

It's been a tough month, but I know that anything is possible when you have family that loves you. 

Maybe I am insane

My goodness it has been awhile. This is my fault, of course. Our lives have been quite busy and well...I think a catch up is in order.

My husband and I decided to start a business on the side. With some help and insight from family members and friends, we're building up a company from scratch and hope to have it go live and start working on it in the coming months. Once we have the website and everything set up, there will be a post going farther into depth about this, but consider this your teaser.
In other family news, my husband, who has been desperately searching for a job for a year and three months (not that I'm counting), had his first day of work on Thursday. Does it need to be mentioned that this is exciting? I hope not, because it has pretty much made my month. Hell, my season. Perhaps my year.

 As you may be aware, we are currently living with my in-laws who have so graciously took us in while my husband searched high and low for a job, but with this new family change, we may be moving out soon! We're looking at moving out in May or June, depending on whether we want to pay down some credit card debt we have before heading out on our own. Sasha, our dog, has been getting used to being alone at home during the day. She's actually never had a day where someone wasn't just at the house with her. Needless to say, she's not a big fan so far.
This next week is going to be a busy one. My husband, best friend Steph, sister and I are all going to see the Hunger Games for a midnight showing on Thursday/Friday. And to make our weeks crazier, we're seeing Jeff Dunham on Saturday.
More updates will be coming more often. Sorry for not updating lately, as you can tell...we've been busy.

Best. Day. Ever.

Today has been a very exciting day.

First, my abs hurt like crazy due to some crazy contraption that I was playing with at the gym. Second, my husband let me have my Valentine's Day present early. I took a picture for all to see. He found some gorgeous peridots. I'm sure you're wondering what could be better than gorgeous peridots? My husband has a job. Well, almost. He's going through the background check right now and then they're offering it, I guess. So exciting!

I guess that means we'll be moving sooooon!

A little fun with questions

Kate from Diary of a Blonde tagged me in this cute little interview thing. So let's give it a whirl!

Rules:
1. You must post these rules.
2. Each per­son must post 11 things about them­selves on their blog.
3. Answer the questions the tag­ger set for you in their post, and cre­ate 11 new ques­tions for the people you tag to answer.
4. You have to choose 11 peo­ple to tag and link them on the post.
5. Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her.
6. No tag backs.

Facts About Moi:
1. Graduating from college has been my greatest achievement to date. It only took six years which also included countless boyfriends, two engagements and one marriage! 
2. My favorite piece of jewelry is my wedding ring, my next favorite is all of my Peridot jewelry.
3. My love of Mexican food drives my husband bonkers. Whenever he suggests we go out to eat, my list consists of all of my favorite Mexican restaurants. His list generally consists of Thai, Sushi and Chinese. Problems tend to arise. 
4. I have a strong aversion to self-professed "Bitches" and "Bad Boys". I, especially, don't like bad boys. They're rude, caustic, and worthless. Why would I go for a bad boy when a nerd is so much cuter?
5. Toxic friends are one of my biggest pet peeves. Ditto on toxic significant others.
6. Accounting is something I'm doing for the time being, but probably don't want to do for the long term. 
7.  My favorite food is Mac & Cheese with a can of Tuna. Whenever I'm down, my husband will make me a bowl to cheer me up. It generally does the job.
8. I absolutely love the beauty of Seattle. It's gorgeous here. But I could do without the traffic.
9. The Hunger Games Trilogy is one of my top five book series of all time
10. I haven't had a hair cut since June...it's January. 
11. I love the style from eras that have long passed, especially the 40s 50s and 60s.

Q's From Kate:
1. Who is your favorite Disney Princess and why? Ariel. She risked everything for someone she loved and nearly lost it all.
2. If you could change your major, what would you change it to? Either Astrophysics (which was my original major prior to Accounting) or Midwifery
3. What is your best talent? Coding websites, despite my lack of training and probably my ability to sing.
4. Where would you most like to travel to? Aix-en-Provence in France. <3
5. What is your New Years Resolution? To lose weight, to be healthier, to take care of myself and my marriage.
6. Sweet or Savory? Both. At the same time. Yum.
7. What was the last song you listened to? Ellie Goulding's "Your Biggest Mistake"
8. Which celebrity would you have sex with, no questions asked? Ewan McGregor. I hope my husband isn't reading this...
9. What is your favorite TV show and why is it so great? 30 Rock. It can make me double over laughing  every time.
10. Would you rather be at the beach or in the snow? Both are awesome, but there's something that is wonderful about an ocean beach
11. What is your heritage? Irish. From my freckles down to my temper.

Q's From Me:
1. What is one item you can not live without?

2. If you could live anywhere in the world, money not being an object, where would you live?

3. What's something that can move you to tears because of it's beauty?

4. What is your greatest achievement to date?

5. Which celebrity would you have sex with, assuming your significant other was out of the picture?

6. What is your dream job and why would you want to do it?

7. What is something you wish to achieve in the future?

8. What is your comfort food when you're down?
9. What is your favorite kind of chocolate?
10. What is your all time favorite song?
11. What is your favorite thing about the current season?

11 Friends:
1. Colleen
2. Danielle

3. James

4. Hailey

5. Tim
6. Tom
7. Stephanie
8. Jeremy
9. Aly
10. Lacey
11. Courtney

Relax and let live

I'd love to relax here...

This month has been stressful at best, reason for a person to be committed at worse. Thankfully, no one has managed to commit me and my emotional breakdowns have not been large enough to totally take me out of service. In fact, my emotional breakdowns happen to coincide with the two days of the week that are reserved for relazing: the weekend. So, instead of hanging with friends, playing Xbox, going on dates with my husband, my time has been spent mindlessly sifting through pins on Pinterest or sleeping. Thankfully, Pinterest is enough to completely chill me out after five to ten minutes, but the lying in bed and sleeping/sulking/refusing to remove myself from the dent that my body has created in the bed needs to stop. And after a confusing, frustrating and emotional resurgence of my good friend, Depression, on Saturday, I knew something had to be done.
My husband says that I live as if I'm continually running from crisis to crisis, few of them my own. For the most part I'm in agreement, but I think of it as being in almost a constant fight or flight mode. No matter how we define it, this constant stress still makes me a complete wreck more often than not. Well, starting Sunday, which happened to be yesterday, I promised myself that I will try to take everything that happens in stride. Try to relax and live this life. There should be no reason that I need to spend hours on Pinterest just to calm down after a stressful day. To spend more time laughing and being with my husband and puppy. They make me smile the most. Most of all, though, accepting that we can not force our lives to take a certain route. Everything happens for a reason. St. Francis of Assisi said it best, "Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Amen.

This makes me smile

So far, my attempts have not been fruitless. Despite running a bit late this morning, I just smiled, took a deep breath and just reminded myself that I would get to work shortly and that things would be okay. In fact, I managed to joke with my husband about the one thing that tends to set me off most, clothing. Or rather, my lack of cute clothing that fits. So far, it feels like I've accomplished so much by not freaking out, or even stressing about, the little things in life.
My husband is probably reading this and either nodding his head encouragingly, hoping that I'll keep it up or rolling his eyes, because I'm a neurotic crazy person. Or, more likely, both.

All I want for Christmas is...

The holidays are a time for family and being home. Unfortunately, home is a rather flexible term right now for our little family. We currently live with my husband's parents, who graciously took us in while we tried to get out feet under us. Six months later, we are still hopeful that my husband will find a job, but having so little space and not being able to start our lives is truly wearing on us. Right now, I'm writing this while my husband plays video games. Let's just say that it's hard to concentrate and write at the same time. But I don't want to ask him to turn it down or try to choose something that is more, well...silent, because this is our spot. The little area where we can be ourselves and pretend is home. For now.

So the one thing I want for Christmas is for my husband to get a job, so we can start making the home we've been dreaming of. I know he is trying his hardest and that the economy sucks so terribly bad, but please, if there is a god, please, let this happen for our family. I would be forever thankful and I know James, who is going stir crazy, would be thankful as well.

Moving right along

Today will be my first weekly check-in regarding my weight loss plan!

Check In #1
Weight Lost: 0
-Diet: Eating better was difficult at first, there was that tiny meltdown discussed a couple days ago. But, I'm happy to report I'm doing much better. Actually, my husband and I had ice cream last night after a very adorable date, and it tasted way too sweet. My diet is for sure evening out.
-Working Out: Started this on Friday. Friday was a seven mile walk. Yesterday was a half mile run. Today is a rest day for a lot of reasons (More on that shortly...). This week, aside from tomorrow, should be better for exercising. I just need to get my butt out of bed in the morning! I'm forcing myself to either do a run around the block or go to the gym that I have a membership at but never attend.
-Overall: This has been a gradual change to my diet and my exercise habits and I think they are working thus far.

Now for the topic everyone wants to talk about and the reason I'm not running/exercising today....My best friend is having her baby today!! Last I heard she's being induced. We're going back to the hospital in a bit to check on her. But it's exciting!

Baby steps

So, last Sunday I posted regarding my weight loss plan. Honestly, so far, I've been pretty terrible at it. The first day I tried pretty much surviving on as little as possible and then broke and started scarfing everything I could...including a Caramel Brulle Latte. And that latte was so not a skinny one. So first day, I failed in an epic fashion. Second day, armed with some delicious and nutritious snacks, my day was so much better than the one prior. Wednesday came around, same deal. I ate even less, snacked some, and felt amazing. So, I guess the first step for myself was to eat better. Exercising comes after the eating better part. Now, my desire for refined sugars and starchy foods is super limited. (I actually just want to snack on a handful of almonds and dried cranberries. Yum!) We currently have two bags of Hershey's kisses and I've only had five over the past four days. There just isn't a desire for me to eat them! In addition to losing my sweet tooth, my energy has gone up immensely. Today, my husband and I are going to a local park and walking five miles to our favorite doggy park at Marymoor and then the five miles back. Our puppy is going to be so tired, but I'm trying to find reasons to get us out and about because we both feel like we need to "get rid of" the weight.
On the bright side, my ability to keep up and manage the exercise part this next week may not be as bad as the week prior. After all, I have more energy!