Reading Go Set a Watchman feels a lot like reading a draft of novel... which is pretty much just what it is. The writing is uneven, as is the plot, but it's not without merit, and certainly some parts of the book are quite engaging and interesting. 
 That said, it's hard to read this book as anything but a curiosity. This is the book that never was; it's the draft that eventually became To Kill a Mockingbird. There's a weird disconnect reading it, knowing that this was a first pass that was turned into something else. 
 As for all the hoopla over the portrayal of Atticus -- well, I look at it as a presentation of something that might have been. To Kill a Mockingbird is the real version, the one that Harper Lee ultimately chose to present to the world. If she'd ever chosen to write a sequel, would that Atticus be the Atticus of Watchman? We'll never know. 
 What I found most interesting about Watchman is the idea of the crushing of childhood idols. Scout is Jean Louise here, a young woman in her mid-20s, coming home to Maycomb for a visit from her home in New York. The crisis and climax of the book revolve around Jean Louise's discovery of Atticus's bigoted views of the African Americans in their community and what he views as their place in the world. Jean Louise is horrified (rightly so), and it's only after much drama, tears, and confrontations that she finally calms down a bit. The concept I appreciated here is the coming of age moment when a child realizes that an idolized parent has imperfections, and has to figure out how to reconcile this truth with her childhood beliefs. 
 Beyond that, the most charming and heartfelt moments in this book revolve around Jean Louise's memories of her childhood with Jem and Dill. No wonder she was urged to refocus her book on the childhood of Scout! 
 I ended up writing a semi-lengthy reaction piece about Watchman, which you can read here. In terms of my rating of this book, the bottom line is that as a story, it held my interest and had some very interesting ideas and moments, but I wouldn't call it a great book. And in terms of its version of beloved characters, I choose to think of it as more of a "what if" situation. If Harper Lee had published this book in the 1950s, then this is the version of events and characters that we'd know. But that's not what happened. 
 The Atticus and Scout I know and love from To Kill a Mockingbird remain with me, and this book doesn't change that.