Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - The Goldfinch

Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

fabilous_books's review

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

10 months of this book... 10 months of all this stuff going on with drugs and alcohol and obsession and guilt. the plot is slow and not much going on. We follow Theo's life. His life is a catastrophe as he puts it. He drinks and takes drugs, thanks to Boris. The whole story is without a direction, we start with Amsterdam and it seems he's in trouble. Then, we continue from when he was 13. The story is long and without a purpose. We are as lost as Theo. yes, its long but at times it is very intriguing but for the other parts, boring... The last 100 pages to be should not exist. Better to leave Boris seeing Theo in the hotel room the second time. I did not need that much closure... for a book that says that there’s no moral or story, there’s no resolution, we didn’t need 40 pages worth morals and what Theo learns from this life.

Theo is not an interesting character, self-destructive, sad and definitely guilty. He has borderline creepy obsessions over the things he "love". Probably thanks to the childhood trauma he has of losing his mother.

Boris is a mess. He seems to be doing well despite his horrible lifestyle and health. Maybe he's pretending very well.

Pippa is not as interesting as Theo sees her.

Anyways, saving grace of this book is the writing. Thank goodness for it. it's beautiful and fluid, might be too descriptive but the way Donna describes loss and emotions. I love it.

YEs, I'm complaining here but I did enjoy the book but just disappointed that I did not love it.

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muukhom's review

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dark emotional sad tense 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

After I finished The Secret History I buy this one immediately because I love Tartt’s writing and I’m glad to say she did not disappoint me

The length of the book kinda overwhelmed me at first but now that I finished it, it was not a long boring book with useless description or sub-plot. It was, in fact, a really fascinating book. Although I find that some part could be cut off but it was not irritating and still enjoyable. Would definitely reread it some time.

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maac's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

honestly took me so long and did in fact drive me into a reading slump but it was a really good and interesting book i think donna tartts novels are always quite dense and you have to pay attention a lot to grasp what’s going on and i haven’t been able to even be present irl so ……. but i did enjoy this a lot!! also the ending was probably one of the most beautifully written things i’ve read in a while :,)

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loribeth1961's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

4.0

Back in the early 1990s, I read an amazing debut novel (that I keep meaning to re-read someday) called "The Secret History" by a talented young writer named Donna Tartt. Tartt went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for her third novel, "The Goldfinch." I bought a thick paperback copy that languished on the shelf, eventually to be replaced by an e-copy -- which I still hadn't gotten around to reading, until it was chosen by one of my online book clubs as our next read, covering both March & April (because of its 700+ page length -- my e-book copy, when set at a comfortable-for-my-eyes typesize & line spacing, was 1,400+!). (I still haven't read Tartt's second book, "The Little Friend.")

As the book begins, our protagonist/narrator, Theo Decker, is holed up in a hotel in Amsterdam, thinking back to the fateful day 14 years earlier when, as a 13-year-old in New York City, he and his mother decided to pop into the Metropolitan Museum of Art to kill some time before heading to an appointment -- at the same time that a massive explosion occurs -- a deadly terrorist attack.

Amid the chaos, Theo comforts a dying elderly gentleman, who gives him a ring and directs him to take one of the paintings (which happens to be his mother's favourite) -- a small, exquisite picture of a goldfinch, chained to its perch, by Dutch master Carol Fabritius (and it is an actual painting). Wrapped in newspapers and an old pillowcase, the priceless masterpiece -- the one thing he has left that connects him to his mother -- accompanies Theo over the next 14 years, as he moves from his mother's apartment and in with a friend's wealthy family on Park Avenue -- then to the completely alien environment of Las Vegas with his previously estranged father and his girlfriend -- then back to New York again (Greenwich Village).

First -- what I didn't enjoy: the book is very (VERY!) LONG, and very leisurely paced. Maybe it's a sign of our shrinking attention spans in the age of instant gratification, but it did feel like a bit of a slog at times. (At 700+ pages, shouldn't I be able to count it as two books read on Goodreads??)

(As an aside: Scanning the reviews of both the book and the movie version online, the word "Dickensian" kept popping up. There are some parallels in the sprawling, meandering, twisting plot, and large cast of colourful characters -- and one of the characters references Dickens, drawing a parallel between another character and the Artful Dodger from "Oliver Twist" -- but most especially the length!)

It's all well written, but some of the material felt extraneous -- there's a lot that probably could have been cut or condensed. Also, there are lots of foreign words & phrases throughout, which was slightly annoying, because I felt like I either had to stop reading and start typing into Google Translate, or keep reading but possibly miss out on a key piece of information, or at least some little nugget that would add to my understanding &/or enjoyment of the novel.

Still. Just when I felt like things were going nowhere, they would pick up again -- and I'd keep on reading.

What I enjoyed about this book: Tartt really is an amazing writer. The characters are all vividly drawn. As I said, I kept reading -- because I wanted to know what happened to Theo, and his best friend -- the charismatic rogue Boris (who -- timely footnote -- is Ukrainian); and to Hobie, the kindly craftsman and expert restorer of antique furniture, who gives Theo a home and a future; and Pippa, a fellow survivor of the terrorist attack, and Theo's dream girl; and the Barbour family, and more. (Apparently Luke Wilson plays Theo's dad in the movie version -- and I can see that -- but really, the only person I could envision as I read the book was a young Michael Douglas. ;) ) The descriptions of New York City and Las Vegas were cinematic. And Tartt's descriptions of the lingering effects of grief and loss, trauma/PTSD, guilt and anxiety, all of which hang over and colour the entire book, are BANG ON. There are several coincidences and plot twists that, while somewhat improbable, also keep things interesting.

So -- not 5 stars. There were parts of the book where I was thinking 3.5, but I wound up bestowing a solid 4. I will look forward to our upcoming discussion.

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