The Goldfinch by Donna TarttMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
What a terrible, self-aggrandizing book this was. The whole time reading it I felt like the author was looking down their horn-rimmed reading glasses at me with a holier-than-thou look, smirking as if to say 'haha, you're FAR too daft to understand this'. And you know what? If the book had even been halfway intelligent, I would have had an easier time of getting through it.
As it stands, this was the most excruciating slog through a novel that I've ever had-- I often felt like the author had just taken an intro to Art History class and wrote the whole thing while observing the 'youths' in university, it was so narratively unbelievable. The rampant casual racism (which I'm sure will be excused with, "But you're not supposed to like that he thinks like that!" as if using racism to make your characters unlikeable is the most fucking ground-breaking thing), the unnecessarily elevated language, the one-dimensional characters, and the complete inability to decide on a tone made this novel just awful. I don't care that it won a Pulitzer, I would honestly rather die than recommend this 700-page-trek to another living being, and I'm seriously considering cussing out the friend who gave it to me in the first place.
The only thing keeping me from lighting this fucking thing on fire is the knowledge that the ozone layer doesn't deserve to be subjected to it, even in molecule form. 1 star only because the story started with promise.
View all my reviews What did you guys think? Have you read it?
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