The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a coming-of-age fiction novel that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. It’s a wonderful novel but one that requires patience, being that it is over 700 pages long. It explores the grief and sadness of a young boy as he is forced to grow up having lost his mother in an art museum explosion in which he himself barely survived. For some odd reason, he steals an exquisite and irreplaceable painting from the late 1600s, and from there, young Theo navigates his pre-teen life up to adulthood with various stages of grief, depression, happiness, and sadness.

I think one of the reasons why the story of The Goldfinch worked for me is due to how, although it is obvious that Theo goes through life with different degrees of sadness and at times hopelessness, it doesn’t drown you in it. It doesn’t suck you in to the point where you, as the reader, feel the same as Theo. In other words, Theo doesn’t wallow in self-pity to the point of driving the readers away. The author has no need or requirement to constantly remind the readers that here is a character that is in deep misery. It explores those acts in different ways that aren’t quite obvious at first, but as the story goes on, it hits you in different doses.

The book is broken into five different chapters depicting the various stages of Theo’s life. My opinion is that his time in Vegas, along with his relationship with Boris, is the best in the book. His friendship with Boris and the time they spent together in the early years shaped Theo as a character the most. Boris was so greatly depicted that I could almost imagine him in my mind, more so than Theo himself. The way he talks, his slight movements, and his way of thinking are what really make him a standout character.

My biggest gripe with The Goldfinch, and one I’m sure I am not the only one to voice, is the awkward and unsatisfactory conclusion. The whole last section when he was dragged to Amsterdam with Boris was just weird and something I think could have been done better. Theo’s depressing monologue in this section was laid on just a bit too thick and for too long. It seems like an odd break from the story up to that point and felt as if the author didn’t really know how to proceed, so why not just have Theo continue to ramble on and on? Because of their close relationship, it’s only fitting that Boris plays a part in the conclusion, but for it to happen the way it did in Amsterdam? Once again, I felt a different resolution should have been concocted instead of the whole paint-chasing phase along with shady characters that were just thrown in because obviously some type of villains were needed.

Altogether, The Goldfinch was a pretty solid read. The book didn’t feel that long until you hit the very last portion of it, fortunately. It was the only time in the entire book that I skipped and glanced over some of Theo’s monologue rambling to the audience. As far as writing prose goes, it’s obvious the author can write and tell a good story. However, I think some of the reviews I’ve read praised the writing just a bit too much. There were some things that obviously stood out, but I felt that in other novels I’ve read, the author’s writing made a more lasting impression once I’d completed the book.