The Goldfinch in 2015 Reading Challenge [Closed]

Oct 18, 2013 Mary rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Enormously draining, a huge commitment, depressing. I kind of want to read it again right now.

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Jan 02, 2015 Rebecca Heneghan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Read a second time and still am in love. May be my favorite book ever. The emotions in this book are so pure with such a crazy cast of characters that just make sense. I may just have to get to The Hague to see this little painting that inspired this amazing book.

No matter if you love or hate this book. I think it will be something you want to talk about. I loved it and think it is by far the best book of 2014. Amazing story with twists and turns that I did not expect. A MUST read!

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Dec 21, 2013 webslog rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Holy crap, that was amazing.

First, a suggestion. The Goldfinch really is s painting. I suggest not looking it up before you read this book. More on that later.

We may only get one book every ten years out of Donna Tartt, but every one in more than worth the wait. Epic in its spread and deeply, grimly hopeful, The Goldfinch is at once a picaresque, a mystery, and an extended dialog on mortality, chance and what we call Fate. Add an unrequited love story with a 15-year arc and an extended love le ...more

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Jan 27, 2014 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This is a novel of many themes, including that one event can reorient a person’s whole life, but also how the friends you meet and truly trust along the way influence you and your life. All the characters in Theo’s life seem to represent his first two influences: His mother, good (Hobie, Pippa, Mrs. Barbor, Andy), or bad (his father, Boris), but show the influence of life, that not all that is good is good and not all that is bad is bad. Boris is good for our Theo, yet a bad influence. Someone y ...more

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Jan 06, 2014 Sara rated it really liked it · review of another edition

About halfway through the book, I decided that it's really not about the bird or the painting but rather a boy who becomes just like his despised father....
In the end, I changed my mind. As written in the last few pages:
"The bird looks out at us. It's not idealized or humanized. It's very much a bird. Watchful, resigned. There's no moral or story. There's no resolution. There's only a double abyss: between painter and imprisoned bird; between the record he left of the bird and our experience of ...more

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Aug 27, 2014 Beth Caruso rated it liked it · review of another edition

I just don't get the buzz about this book. There were passages that were great - some characters that were interesting. However, I found Theo completely unlikeable. At the beginning, he was a lost kid in the worst possible situation ... it was completely understandable that he hid the painting. However, through the course of the book, Theo became a thug, a liar, an unrepentant addict. The one character I loved was Hobie. For his kindness and faith that there is goodness in even the most flawed. ...more

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May 08, 2014 Jesse rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I listened to the audiobook version, which is about 33 hours long. It took about 25 hours for the story to finally grab me, but when it did, it really sucked me in. The narrator was perfect, with a flawless Russian accent, which is hugely important as the story unfolds. Not for the faint of heart, there is plenty of foul language and teenage drunkenness and debauchery.

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Feb 12, 2014 Tara Pollard York rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I really enjoyed the first half of this book but the last 1/4 or so dragged out and was very boring to me...which is disappointing since I was so drawn in At the beginning!

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