What’s it about?
I don’t even know. It’s about a boy, Theo who steals a painting and loses a mother; psychologically, he’s a mess. His father’s a professional gambler and he alternates between a nerd genius and the son of a Russian mobster for a best friend. Theo grows up. And then I put the book down, fully intending to come back to it. That was many, many months ago. I finally called it last week, looking at The Goldfinch yet again and yet again passing it over for a different story.
Why should you read it?
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Donna Tartt because I loved Secret History that much. You should read it if you feel the same way about one of her other books. But there’s a casual cruelty to some of the characters that I found off-putting, not to mention there’s at least one sub-plot that could be resolved if the characters would just talk to each other. At the end of the day, I didn’t care enough to finish it. You might like it better.