The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

I cared desperately about the protagonist in this novel. I was with him every step of the way, like his mother, grieving at the things that happened to him, at the poor decisions he made, at the inevitability of the story. He is a child lost and struggling to find himself. But perhaps this is because I am a mother. This is another of Donna Tartt’s compelling stories. However it’s overly long I think, wordy, sometimes ponderous and some of the monologues, both internal and external, do become tedious. I admit to skipping slabs of it. And I’m not sure about the story line. It is very black and white – good mum, bad dad, good wizard-like antiques dealer, bad antiques shysters, crooks and criminals and evil but good best friend Boris. It took me quite a while to work my way through this novel and I’m really not sure about it. It’s certainly not as good as her two previous books.