The Goldfinch

4⭐️— “I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.”

Well. That was an entire effort and a half! THE GOLDFINCH honestly & truly did not to be as long as it was. I felt like there were sections that were filled with mostly unnecessary information, unending thoughts from Theo, or long, meandering conversations he had with any other character. The novel could have easily been 200 pages shorter.

THAT BEING SAID: I still really liked it! Tartt, while long-winded, is an incredible writer and the way she weaves together words and sentences is masterful. The good parts are really a delight to read. She writes grief and angst really well; I could feel Theo’s heaviness when he was a child and I could feel his desperation as an adult.

I am really excited to see the movie! I think that it might be … (stay with me) better than the book 😬 But only because they’ll probably cut out all the things I found unnecessary. (Hopefully!!)

“That life – whatever else it is – is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”

Star-Crossed

3⭐️— STAR-CROSSED more like plot crossed!! I usually quite like when plots cross and find each other in strange ways (ie Love, Actually, and other movies/books like that) but sometimes it’s just too much. That was the problem here.

♈️

I don’t think either of the main characters grew at all in the novel. It takes place over a year and at the end all their decisions felt the same. Justine did something not great; she was dishonest in her job multiple times and dishonest in her oldest friendship. I don’t think she learned anything even after there were consequences. The background stories were interesting enough, it was cool to see how Justine’s actions affected more than just Nick. But we never got enough of those stories and it made the whole novel feel really choppy. I also didn’t really like Justine and Nick. Justine had potential but her choices and the stagnant nature of her character growth really threw me off. Nick on the other hand seemed like a wet blanket with virtually no potential. I don’t know why Laura(?) was so invested in getting him to change/stay with her. She would be thriving without him tbh.

♈️

A fun-ish, quick read but ultimately a book I will forget about soon. The real question is: do you believe in astrology? I kinda do. It’s like, it’s definitely not real….. but what if it is. There are some people I know whose signs are truly THEM and other people who don’t match their signs at all. Honestly I just think it’s fun! Sometimes we just need a little random star-sign reading to brighten our day, y’know? So what’s your sign and do you feel like you fit it?