What I’m Reading: The Goldfinch

I just finished listening to The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  I had heard good things about it so I wanted to check it out.  Luckily my online library had it.

I started listening and was immediately drawn in.  It’s a good story.  It’s supper descriptive and typically, I really like that.  I listened and listened and listened and listened working on project after project as I listened.  After a couple days of listening-all day long listening-I didn’t see the story wrapping up soon so I went to Amazon and checked out the reviews.  There I found out the book is 784 pages long.  WOW…that is a long book.  Thankfully, it’s a pretty good book.

Here’s what Amazon has to say about it, “Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.”

The writing is wonderful but towards the end I found myself ready to be done.  It wasn’t that the book was bad, I just wanted an ending.  I think we are all programmed that a book should be about 300 pages so when it went more than double that, I was antsy.  Even though I love descriptive books, I think the book could have been edited down about 100 pages and kept the story intact.

This is not a mystery or suspense…it’s more of an unfolding of a life after tragedy happens.  Amazon readers said 4 stars.  I’d agree.

Oh…I am off to go turn the proper burner on the stove, heat up some water so I can have a cup of Maxwell International Coffee that I told you about earlier this week.