Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

93 reviews

redroseses's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Racial slurs and Animal cruelty

vaguely_pink's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

3.0

I think this one just wasn’t for me. Tartt is undeniably an incredibly gifted writer. Her characters leap off the page. The Goldfinch reads like a memoir and I often found myself wondering how it’s possible that someone could pull such real characters out of their head. The audiobook narrator is also masterful in his performance of each one. But part of why I continued to ask myself this was because their lives, and consequently this book, are just so oppressively bleak. Like, I’m a proud Sad Girl™, but this felt like too much sometimes. 

There were also numerous times where I felt like we were gearing up for an ending only to check the audiobook and realize that somehow I still had 13 hours left. As I got to the end, I started to have my usual audiobook thoughts of “maybe I’d like this more if I read with my eyes,” especially with the discussions about the importance of art to the human experience. But I’m not sure I would’ve had the endurance for this book in print. And when it does finally end, it feels very

Boris

ex machina and entirely too quick and easy. I don’t know, man. Maybe all the new adult fantasy I’ve been reading lately is finally rotting my brain. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Addiction, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, and Violence

Moderate: Bullying, Fire/Fire injury, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Infidelity, Classism, Death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Animal cruelty, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Sexual content, Racial slurs, Homophobia, Murder, Sexism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Medical content, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Vomit, and Sexual violence

Terrorism, bombing, organized crime

lisaalessandra's review against another edition

Very emotionally upsetting

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Death of parent, Blood, and Body horror

jelliestars's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Cursing, Animal cruelty, Pedophilia, Xenophobia, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Infidelity, Murder, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Racism, Toxic friendship, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

Minor: Animal death, Classism, Deportation, Torture, Ableism, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Car accident, Cultural appropriation, Islamophobia, Antisemitism, Body shaming, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Gore, Sexual content, and Transphobia

kou_'s review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Drug abuse, Addiction, and Death of parent

Moderate: Blood, Suicide attempt, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

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 against another edition

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