The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
After many false starts, I finally was able to make it more than 20 pages through this book. My love of art was the sole thing that kept me engaged. Tartt's obvious appreciation for the talent of the masters was sincere and inspiring. However, the rest fo the book was solidly "meh" for me. I understand why it won the Pulitzer, but I'm planning on giving Tartt a second chance when I read The Secret History. From what I've heard, that should've been her Pulitzer winner.
I would never dissuade someone from reading this book. I don't feel like the time I spent on it was a waste, but it just wasn't a book that will stick with me.
Synopsis:
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 Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.