Book Review: The Goldfinch

Unlike The Secret History, which grabbed me by the throat and didn’t let go until I galloped to the end, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is an unevenly paced book. In the first two hundred pages, there’s a terrorist attack on the Metropolitan Museum of Art which leaves our protagonist Theo trapped in a gallery, where he steals a small but exquisite painting, The Goldfinch, which really ought to be exciting but in fact did not grab me with any urgency.

The explosion also kills Theo’s mother, leaving Theo essentially orphaned, as no one knows how to find his deadbeat dad - and it’s only when said deadbeat dad shows up and drags Theo off to live in Las Vegas that the book really grabbed me.

It’s not because of the dad himself, mind, but because the move introduces Theo to Boris Pavlikovsky.

( BORIS PAVLIKOVSKY also spoilers but mostly Boris )