Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

71 reviews

lucy_36's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, Gun violence, Child death, Grief, Murder, Homophobia, Blood, Medical content, Alcohol, Drug use, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, and Addiction

holliesatchell's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Violence, Death, Drug abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Death of parent, and Medical trauma

_rowan_'s review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

dahaejoo's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Vomit, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Drug use, and Grief

Moderate: Mental illness, Blood, Classism, Cursing, Physical abuse, and Child abuse

Minor: Suicide attempt, Murder, Gun violence, Hate crime, and Suicidal thoughts

cstein's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Some racist humor/undertones that the 2022 reader should question. Tartt's description of the attack and its aftermath are moving and memorable, in contrast to later passages and conversations which feel rushed and underexplained. Interesting use of an unreliable narrator and a combination of several narrative styles. Generally entertaining.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Blood, Death of parent, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Violence, Medical trauma, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Vomit, Death, Gore, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Racism, Animal cruelty, Abandonment, and Mental illness

Minor: Antisemitism, Classism, Medical content, and Trafficking

an_anonymous's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

i’m really at lost for words to describe this book….and yet i feel like i could talk about it for days. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Blood, Drug abuse, and Alcoholism

lydiajlong's review

dark 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

4.75

“Turning away, I continued to drift downtown, with no very clear idea where I was going or why, and as I walked I had the oddly appealing sensation that I was undoing myself, unwinding myself thread by thread, rags and tatters falling away from me in the very act of crossing Thirty-Second Street and flowing along amongst the rush-hour pedestrians and rolling along from the next moment to the next.”
•
This was the first fiction book I have read in a LONG time. And I love that I committed to this 700+ page adventure. Donna Tartt puts so many hard emotions and complex ideas in so many beautiful words and descriptions. You really fall for some of these characters, their faults and vices. I loved the larger discussion of life, meaning, and right and wrong. Appreciated this read and the journey Donna took us all on. 
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tw: I’d warn my younger friends of cursing, drug use, sexual content, violence, and references to death and grieving — chat with your guardian before picking this book up!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death of parent, Addiction, Alcohol, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Infidelity, Murder, and Cursing

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Vomit

exactlyem's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Mental illness, Blood, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Death of parent, Hate crime, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Bullying

Minor: Vomit and Trafficking

rachelditty's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Picked this up after watching the movie with a friend. I downloaded the audiobook to listen to while I moved into my new apartment. Ended up listening to the last 9 hours in one sitting, and I was completely transfixed by the last two hours. Theo's address to the reader at the end really got to me, and I think this was a good story for me to read at this transitional stage in my early twenties. I definitely want to get a physical copy to put flags in. What a wonderful read.

Some quotes:
"Cool, quiet rooms, where old things slept."

"It occurred to me, that if I didn't already know how my mother had died, no power on Earth could have convinced me they hadn't murdered her."

"...standing up and stretching so that a band of stomach showed between his fatigues and ragged shirt, concave, dead white, like a starved saint's."

"More than anything, I was relieved that in my unfamiliar, babbling and wanting to talk state, I'd stopped myself from blurting the thing on the edge of my tongue, the thig I'd never said, even though it was something we both knew well enough without me saying it out loud to him in the street, which was, of course, I love you."

"My heart was zinging and slamming itself around like a bee under a glass, everything bright, sharp, confusing, wrong."

"Well, let's put it another way. Who was it said that coincidence was just God's way of remaining anonymous?"

"To try to make some meaning out of this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase, Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it's there."

"And who knows? But maybe that's what's waiting for us at the end of the journey. A majesty unimaginable until the very moment we find ourselves walking through the doors of it, what we find ourselves gazing at in astonishment when God finally takes his hands off our eyes, and says, 'look!'"

"Whatever teaches us to talk to ourselves is important; whatever teaches us to sing ourselves out of despair."

"And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them, while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the end of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next."

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Alcohol, Bullying, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Child abuse

quinn24's review

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Death of parent, Cursing, Suicide attempt, Drug use, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Racial slurs, Death, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Grief, Mental illness, and Violence

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Sexual content