Atticus by Ron Hansen
Published 1996 · 260 pages · 70,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Atticus to read?
Atticus scores 42 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 35 out of 100
- Clear American prose with Colorado setting.
- Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
- Controlled sentences.
- Abstraction: 42 out of 100
- Father-son questions through mystery.
- Information density: 40 out of 100
- Mystery efficiently conveyed.
- Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
- Mystery structure withholds truth.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- Father-son, Mexico, truth carry weight.
- Ironic distance: 40 out of 100
- Hansen writes with sympathy.
- Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
- Mystery resolved but relationship continues.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Mystery narrative with flashbacks.
How Atticus is regarded
Atticus holds a literary regard score of 56 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.