Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

88 reviews

ewwniamh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

it took me almost a year to finish this book and although i have some problems with it, i do really have a strong attachment to it and it's characters. 

whether that be because of how long it took me to read it or because i actually enjoyed it as much as the secret history, I'm not sure but that last chapter was absolutely incredible so donna tart has got me in a chokehold again for a second time I guess

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Blood, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Death, Addiction, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Violence, Drug use, Domestic abuse, Murder, Grief, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Racism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Medical content and Medical trauma

nils_0's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious relaxing sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, Murder, Addiction, Alcohol, Cursing, Violence, Alcoholism, Grief, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Car accident, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Vomit

booksandboba's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

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

I can’t give a star/numerical rating to this book because I really don’t know how to describe my feelings.

When I first read it, I loved it, loved the writing style and character development (it was my first or one of my first encounters with writing like this), really related to descriptions of anxiety and depression, considered it my favorite book. Read it a second time and started forming doubts, particularly with noticing issues of classism and racism. Read it a third time, this time annotating heavily for themes present throughout the book (question of fate vs free will, good vs bad and moral responsibility, depression and grief vs hope, art and its beauty and importance, friendship and love, impermanence vs permanence, time, life and death) and enjoyed doing that, but in doing so realized that the book really could have been edited better. I found the ending to be sloppy and not satisfying. And the way that blatant racism is used in the book (equating East Asian and especially Chinese culture and objects with cheapness) is just appalling.

And apparently it took 10 years or more to write this book, which either means that those choices were deliberate and well-thought out, choosing to only have people of color represented in minor roles mostly as working class serving the white upper class, choosing to use racist notions to make character points, or she somehow in all that time failed to consider these choices — why she might be making them, what they mean, what sort of impact they would have — despite the clear time and attention to detail given to making this book. 

Maybe you can claim that Theo, as a character, is racist, and that it just adds to the long list of character flaws and why we can’t trust him as a reliable narrator etc., but we already have so many examples so why would this be necessary? The racism does not directly connect to a point that needs to made either for plot or theme as far as I can see, and even if Theo as a character is just racist, that still doesn’t explain why the only people of color we encounter are in working class positions, save maybe the two social workers. (And he can’t even remember the Korean woman’s name, and just has to mention that her breath smells like garlic?)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Blood, Death of parent, Mental illness, Murder, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Gun violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Car accident, Classism, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, and Homophobia

Minor: Pregnancy

marianneiriss's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Should you read The Goldfinch? Yes, but also no:

If you’ve read and enjoyed other long, slow, and at times frustrating books (for example, Crime and Punishment!), you like to read books with entirely unlikeable characters and unreliable narrators, and you don’t mind forays into odd, illogical, trains of thought and extremely long sentences - yes, definitely read The Goldfinch! 

If you’ve read and enjoyed The Secret History, and you are hoping for something in the same vein of content/themes from The Goldfinch - I probably wouldn’t recommend it to you, because it’s honestly nothing like TSH, and I think you might be disappointed if you go into expecting it to be similar!

Personally, I thought that although it’s not an easy read, it was worth it. I’ve not been able to stop thinking about The Goldfinch since I finished last month. 

I loved the lyrical writing - Donna Tartt has beautiful prose. And she captures this feeling of a kind of resigned despair so well, it pervades the entire book. I actually had to take a bit of a break from reading it at one point just to read something a bit less unhappy (I wouldn’t class this as ‘a sad book’ necessarily, but it is an unhappy book, at times desperately so). I’ve included some content warnings at the end of this review, and I would recommend looking into them before you decide to commit to reading The Goldfinch, as it does deal with heavy subject matter. 

All this being said, I did think that it is a fantastic book overall, and if you’re currently battling through it I would recommend sticking with it, as you’ll be glad by the end that you did. Despite how frustrating it feels at times - I certainly felt like yelling at Theo “please, just don’t do that, just don’t” at multiple points! - it is well worth persevering with it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Suicide, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Blood, Gun violence, Toxic friendship, Murder, Abandonment, and Infidelity

rae_kjise's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Death, Physical abuse, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Drug use, Car accident, Blood, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Gun violence, Murder, Bullying, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Addiction

syd4panda's review

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

took me about seven months to read. somewhat of a comfort book during that time, but nothing i'd pick up again. got attached to the characters and learned to love and hate their flaws. despite the art gallery bombing being an experience that (i'm assuming) no reader has gone through as well as being an art thief, theo himself is certainly relatable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Death of parent, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Domestic abuse, and Death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Abandonment, Blood, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

Minor: Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Vomit

malebrina's review against another edition

mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Addiction, and Alcohol

Moderate: Blood, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Murder, Bullying, Mental illness, and Grief

Minor: Infidelity and Vomit

akvolcano's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

If you’d like to get completely immersed into a characters life, read this book. I can not wait to discuss this book in-depth with someone!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gun violence, Misogyny, Addiction, Antisemitism, Cursing, Death of parent, Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Alcohol, Bullying, Child abuse, Mental illness, Grief, Hate crime, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Violence, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation, Pedophilia, Gaslighting, Fire/Fire injury, Domestic abuse, Islamophobia, Abandonment, Sexism, Murder, Misogyny, Dysphoria, and Xenophobia

stevienielson's review

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Blood, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Violence, Death, Car accident, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Drug use, Drug abuse, Vomit, Sexism, Death of parent, Cursing, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, and Grief

thecourtofreading's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad slow-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

3.75

finally finished this behemoth of a book. like, this took me way too long to finish. and i adore Donna Tartt. the secret history defined an era of my life for me. but the goldfinch. as much as i liked it, this book dragged on for WAY too long. like there were times where stuff could just be described simply and easily instead of flowery and over the top.

i liked the premise of this book, but the blurb made it seem more interesting than it actually was. it made it seem like Theo stole the painting, and then got pulled into an underworld where he then stole more paintings and ran from the cops. what this really was about was a traumatised boy, who never really found anyone who fully cared from him, did drugs, did alcohol, who clung to a painting that he associated with his recently deceased mother. Theo was exhausting to read about after a while, which is why it took me so long to finish because it was just his internal monologue and his thoughts. the paragraphs were so CHUNKY at times as well it kind of gave me a headache to read. it could've done with a lot being cut out and chopped down, but this is not me saying Donna Tartt is a bad author. she is phenomenal and continues to be phenomenal. i think i much preferred the secret history more, and that will always be my favourite.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Addiction, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Gun violence

Moderate: Blood and Murder

content warning for terrorist attack.