Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Were you one of the few who actually read all of Great Expectations in that ninth grade English class? Then you know what Dickens is all about—and you’ll know right away that Donna Tartt is no Dickens, despite the chorus of frog-like critics croaking praises in the swamp of modern American fiction. I loved Tartt’s Secret History. But this novel is self-indulgent in the extreme, substituting endless, tedious, repetitious descriptions for character development, plot, and meaning. Do we really care about descriptions of drug induced ecstasy—over and over? Or about a total loser like Boris dragging our hero off the rails of sanity, honesty, and decency to no novelistic or moral end? The trope of the Goldfinch and the meaning of life, beaten into us in the last few pages, is really, really jejune—all about Fate and how to deal with it in life. Wow! Deep! This book desperately needed an editor who could stand up to a novelist out of control, to insist on control. And to close the circle, please, please—no more comparisons to Dickens. Ms. Tartt, you are no Charles Dickens.