The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, follows the troubled life of Theo Decker, who, at the age of thirteen, survives a bomb attack in a New York museum. The blast kills his mother - although he doesn't know it at the time, as he is trying to comfort a dying man who persuades him to save The Goldfinch (a painting his mother had specifically brought him to the museum to see) and also to deliver his ring to his partner, Hobie. When Theo gets his head around things, he visits Hobie and discovers that a young girl who he'd also spotted in the museum before the blast is now in residence with Hobie. "Pippa" has been badly injured and Theo keeps coming to visit until she is sent to live with relatives. In the meantime, Theo is taken in by the Barbour family - whose son, Andy, is one of Theo's school friends. Eventually, Theo's very absent father turns up and takes him to Las Vegas to live with him and his partner. His father is a gambler and his partner doesn't want to be a mother to this strange child, and Theo is very much left to his own devices until Boris, a wild and exotic boy from school, takes a shine to him and they strike up a loving but very unhealthy friendship involving drugs, alcohol and absenteeism. When Theo's father dies on the run from people he owes a heck of a lot of money to, Theo heads back to New York and throws himself on the mercy of Hobie, who takes him in, with Theo eventually becoming his business partner in the antiques trade. But things sour, and Theo ends up making some very poor life choices, which lead him back to Boris. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014, and a very, very long book, this would usually put me off, but this story is well worth the effort, even though it does sag at certain times and gets a little rambling towards the end. Full of trauma, longing, disappointment, misunderstandings and drugs, this isn't for everyone and, indeed, is not always an easy read. But there is also a lot of love in this book - even though much of it was on the destructive side. The characters are not easy to like and you can't always believe that Theo could make such poor decisions, but you still end up rooting for him, as well as for Boris, who we know is a very, very bad boy! And what about the fate of painting? Well, The Goldfinch starts as a source of comfort and the one constant in Theo's troubled life, but as he grows up, this all changes ... but to find out how, as well as the impact of this change, you will have to read the book.
My STAR rating: FIVE.
Length: 880 print pages.
Price I paid: Free (borrowed from my husband).
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; unabridged audio CD; ebook.
