Review: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

This is my second attempt at Donna Tartt. My first attempt (The Little Friend) failed miserably early on, but I liked the writing somewhat and everyone said that Tartt was a great writer, so I decided to give it another go. I did finish this one, but only because I had spent so much time on it, that I felt would be wasted if I gave up. But I was actually quite uninterested in the story by the end, and just wanted it to finish already!

Tartt can write really well and atmospherically (is that the word?) if she wants to with vivid descriptions, but boy, can she also just drone on and on! At several points I could not understand how this book could be so long, because for pages on end nothing much would happen plot-wise. She would just harp on about this or that without advancing the plot. When something finally did happen it was usually quite quick and the aftermath and the thinking about it would take up many more pages than the actual event. For example (SPOILER!) the murder in the end was over in a page or so, but the thinking about it lasted for what felt like 50 pages at least. 

I definitely think the beginning of the book was better than the rest. The atmospheric writing was better here, and even though it was a bit boring plot-wise I actually didn’t mind too much, because I enjoyed the beauty of the writing so much. But by the halfway-point the writing seemed to deteriorate a little, and I was just waiting for something to happen to move the plot along. 

At the very end Tartt used a narration style that really irked me! I hate it when the narrator is all like “no one will ever read these pages”, “I know no one will read this”, “Dear non-existent reader” (Actual example!). If you are writing for yourself you don't write stuff like that, and if you do expect someone to read it even though you are pretending you’re not, you are just coming off as pretentious and coy. 


I gave this 2 stars out of 5 on Goodreads. The second star is purely based on the beautiful writing in the beginning. 

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