My thoughts on Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch

I read TSH then Little Friend then this and I have to say, TSH is in my top 5 favorite books but writing wise I feel like Goldfinch was Tartt’s masterpiece. I loved how Theo’s inner monologue could convey feelings so well, I have not read many books that were capable of doing this or that made this one of their key points throughout the text but Goodfinch does it really well in my opinion. Parental loss is not something I have dealr with personally so it is a concept I can’t fully grasp (thankfully), but the way the memories, the flashbacks, the depression and guilt hit Theo at point of the book just seemed so… Maybe real is not the right word I’m looking for, but I feel like the “experience” as a whole of losing a parent was conveyed so well that you almost have a sense of grieving his mother with him…? I guess that’s the best way I can put it. You see someone go through grief is 360degrees in childhood and then we see how it affects him throughout his teenage and adult years. I found that very beautiful.

I also LOVED the parts about drugs. I know many people hat that particular part in the book but I think it is quintessential to get a grasp on how utterly messed up Theo gets (which is totally justified) from his mother passing. I also found that part very lifelike as a lot of people who go through childhood trauma do very fucked up things when they turn into teens or young adults. All in all, I think this book is great because we mostly see the protagonist’s inner world and kind of experience life around him through this inner world. Yes, it’s a long book but I felt all parts (or like 90%) were necessary to get the full experience and truly comprehend why things turned out the the way they did in the end. The only thing I don’t fully agree with is how the book ended. I’m fine with the story ending that way but I felt like maybe it could’ve ended in Amsterdam? I don’t know, I feel the ending would have been a lot more impressionable if it was written differently but otherwise I loved all of it.

It’s so weird because I do have a hard time with books longer than say 400 pages but after it got to the Barbours, and Vegas especially, I just couldn’t put it down. I think it deserves all the hype it gets, it is an acquired taste for sure, but I felt like the other 2 Donna Tartt novels require the same type of taste in books to be enjoyable. I always have a hard time geting into her books, so maybe the first 100 pages are quite boring to me but it was very well worth to power through everytime!