The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

God gracious, I can't believe I finally finished it. Such a long book, for lazy readers like me, it's pure nightmare, these 775 pages.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad one overall, but my opinion of it went down as the pages went. Could've been and probably should've been shorter.

The beginning and the first half are absolutely stellar, and I see why so many people can see the Catcher in Rye echoed there. The joy of youth, then the tragedy and the soul searching – well, these New York and Las Vegas parts are just stunning, cunning, entertaining, can't get my eyes off that kind of thing. It's a Pulitzer Prize winner, and for a reason it is.

But after that, with Theo coming back to New York again in his twenties, and then to Amsterdam, well, these bits are much less appealing. At first the novel lacks action, and then the action is just too much that it becomes klyukva. All the pretty little cranberries, if you know what I mean.

And the very ending, the long tedious passages, the moral of the story – uff, that made me sweat even. Lame. Unnecessary. In want of something else. Brrr.

To sum it up – when I started it in February (well, I think it was February), I was totally mesmerized by it and thinking – damn, it's so good, I will have to read more of Donna's stuff, maybe all of Donna's stuff. Wanted to buy a copy for my dad. When I finished it yesterday night, May already, in a hotel room in Tel Aviv, I'm not sure I want any more. No, not sure at all.