Reviews

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

fruhjahr's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

initially intimidated by the length of this book (as a reader of books averaging about 400 pages) but wow i’m so glad i cracked into it. what a great read, interesting characters, and despite the “slow pace”, it felt like a lot was happening on each page. thoroughly enjoyed this! 

tracamiller's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

csaucedo2010's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

lqndtry14's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

columbidae's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

wetnrusting's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective relaxing sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

avava's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse and Alcoholism

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

iacin's review against another edition

tense

4.0

teadiprima's review

4.0

I was not expecting this to be as similar to the Secret History as it was. Content wise they are extremely different and it wasn't something I noticed until the last 200 pages. Both Donna Tartt books center around an extremely unreliable narrator finding their downfall (?) in the pursuit of beauty above all else. A really interesting and enjoyable book, though sometimes it dragged on a bit.

Low key might be 3.5 but haven’t totally made up my mind yet.

missdragon's review

dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I don’t normally read lit-fic and this sis not my usual genre. A very interesting book that I struggle to rate. Firstly, this is very long about 850 pages. I thought that the first part of the narrative was done incredibly well, from the

art gallery to leaving vegas

. It was a really interesting look into how trauma and grief impacted the psyche of the main character, and I thought it was done pretty realistically. Theo withdraws and is independent and dealing with things no 13 year old should deal with. Because the writing quality was so good, the pacing felt at the right level, being as slow as it was. The tension was incredible and I was holding my breath the whole book.

I think after a particular time skip the book struggled, and I think this honestly could have been much shorter than it was. The book has heavy drug use throughout which kind of stressed me out to read about to be honest, I wasn’t sure what kind of ending this was going to have. The book also was quite an emotional rollercoaster, with really good moments followed by absolute devastation on the next page. The ending also goes on quite a stereotypical philosophical tangent. I did like the very last page. If I was just rating the first half of the book it would be a solid 4, but given the second half, it’s a 3.25 from me.

In true Donna Tart fashion all the characters are very unlikable.