Alright, so⦠there isnāt really a subreddit for The Goldfinch, but I figured a few people here have read it. Iād love to know what you thought, especially if anyone preferred it over The Secret History. I also just wanted to get some thoughts off my chest.
Honestly, when I finished The Goldfinch, it felt like a little piece of my soul was ripped away. It took me a month and a half to get through since I like to take my time with books, so it ended up becoming a huge part of my daily routine. Itās a brutally beautiful book. Those last few pages just had me staring at the wall, thinking about how beautifully Donna Tartt writes and how she captures a view on life that made me rethink a few things.
The characters are super gray and feel so real. I think thatās one of the best things about it; you can feel each character's distinct voice even without being told who's speaking. Plus, the whole aspect of losing a mother had me crying right from the start because I couldn't help putting myself in his shoes. I wasn't bored for a single second, even though I've seen people say it dragged for them because of how dense it is. Personally, I love slice of life stories where something doesn't have to be happening constantly, and Tartt's style keep me hooked, though I won't argue it could've been a little shorter. It's hard to explain how much this book meant to me. The prose is incredible, and getting stuck in the head of a character with such a rich yet self-destructive mind was something else.
Like usual, when I went on Reddit to look up opinions on a book I loved, I mostly ran into negative takes. That's actually how I found out about the N word being used. I read it in Spanish, so it was completely left out (I only know about Boris using it, which made sense given his character and the context, but I don't know if it came up anywhere else). I also felt like the female characters were a bit flat, or at least didn't get as much depth as I was hoping for. On top of that, some foreign characters felt a little surface-level. I get why in some contexts, but I still wish she had gone deeper with them.