THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt ✎✎✎✎ out of five (maybe four-and-a-little-bit)

Wrote down all the books I read in February and early March on a little sheet of paper that I can't find. For the record, those titles are missing here.

But how could I forget all 800-something pages of The Goldfinch? Many people whose reading tastes I respect immensely have called it their top book of the year. And, hey, it just won a Pulitzer. And while I liked it a lot, I'm not in that camp. Eight-and-a-half stars out of ten? Four pencils out of five? (Et voilà! I've added a rating system to my blog.)

I love the protagonist. Beautifully drawn. When we first meet him, Theo is 13, the survivor of a terrorist bomb at the Metropolitan Museum, that kills his beloved mother. He walks away with a valuable painting... and the story is launched. The plot is full of compelling twists and turns. And there's so much really great sentence-by-sentence writing. But. It's just too long. And it's not because I'm becoming an intellectual lightweight in my mid-middle age (though that may, in fact, be true). The book is flabby. It needs an editor. It would be better--a tighter read--if half as long.

I felt this way about Middlesex, too. Excellent book. Needed an editor.