A review by ktrobbins
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This is a tough book to rate. I really liked the beginning, and the end was pretty good too. I could empathize with Theo for the most part, but he became pretty unlikeable, and it made it tough for me to care about him most of the time. The same is true of a lot of the other characters in the book. I feel like there were quite a lot of unnecessary details that made it drag on for so long. I honestly felt relieved when I finished this (I said, "finally")-- yikes!

Maybe listening to it as an audiobook at almost 2x speed made it worse for me, or maybe I'm not enough of an ~intellectual~, idk. It's a decent book but I don't think I would ever re-read it; 3 stars.
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