The Goldfinch

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SYNOPSIS:

Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and an absent father, miraculously survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Theo is tormented by longing for his mother and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld.

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REVIEW

2 STARS

Let's start with the positive thing: although I found Tartt's writing too detailed, this might have been one of the few books I enjoyed that was descriptive. The author's style was sweet and hypnotizing. We can tell she's a very knowledgeable woman with a profound understanding of the Arts and History. I didn't catch all the references, but I managed to enjoy the book nonetheless and I loved to learn about new things (except when she got too technical like with Hobb's work).

However, the plot, the pace and the characters were, to put it nicely, not that good.

Why? First, because everything took ages to happen: there were pages and pages of endless routines and jobs and days blending into weeks, nothing at all happening that held my attention. You want people to have fun while reading your book, to feel intrigued and to care about the plot and the characters, not bore them to death. Tartt's book was just an endless cycle of the same things happening over and over again: Theo's depression, Theo's addiction, Theo's obsession with the painting.

The painting... where should I even start? This object and the whole premise of it being stolen was what made me want to read this book in the first place. Yet it has no importance during more than half the book, being hidden somewhere, its sole purpose to haunt our main character and make him feel paranoid. It's only on page 600 or so that it starts playing an important part but by then I was too bored to continue reading.

The second thing I didn't like was the fact that there was no character growth: Theo's didn't change, Boris didn't change and Hobb neither. It's like the characters got stuck in a specific moment of their lives, never evolving.

Theodore is depressed, Boris is an addict and Hobb is a naïve, clumsy man who trusts too easily. Tartt manages to depict them just right, yet she fails to make them grow and surpass their flaws. She built flat characters who never learn something new. The most annoying of them all was Theo.

Yes, depression sucks and it truly is a black hole that sucks everything around you, but Tartt could've used this book as an opportunity to show help exists. Lives are made of happy and sad moments: no one lives in permanent tragedy... except for Theo. And this makes him a selfish, narcissistic, egocentric character that I hated more and more as I delved into the story. He never cares about others, he's always victimizing himself and whining about how HIS life sucks, how terrible it is and how bad he has it and whatnot.

He ruined the book for me and that's why I stopped on page 643: I couldn't handle him nor his obnoxious life anymore. It was like watching a boat sink with nothing else to do except to watch – that's just not my style.