June's read was The Goldfinch, nominated by Alison. This won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014. For a book that is a brick (at almost 800 pages) surprisingly quite a few of us finished it. Some reviewers have called the novel 'Dickensian': Megan said that it was because Tartt used too many words, and they were all the same words! Phil thought that there was not enough variety in the storyline and/or characters. There needed to be a bit more light to balance out the unremitting darkness and misery. Carmel loved it, particularly the constant thread running throughout of Theo's grief at losing his mother and the impact that had on the rest of his life. Alison enjoyed it so much she has now read it twice- what an achievement! Kristy enjoyed it at the beginning, particularly the early scenes in New York, but grew frustrated by the lack of redeeming features in almost every single character once they headed off to Vegas. She also felt that it dragged on way too long.
All of us were fascinated by the actual artwork The Goldfinch and wanted to know more about the Dutch painter Fabritius. This book was polarising- we either loved it or found it incredibly frustrating. You have to love a book club pick which does that and generates so much debate and discussion!
Scores:
Alison- 9
Carmel- 10
Kristy- 5
Megan- 5
Phil- 7
Average- 7.2
