Goooood Monday Morning!

I'm dragging today... after very little sleep.

I stayed awake until after 2:30 to finish The Goldfinch. I was determined to get it done. Some books I like to soak in and read more and more slowly as the end nears because I don't want to be finished with them. This was not one of them. I liked the book, I actually liked it a lot, but (Dr. Phil says a 'but' there repudiates anything said before it but I don't agree) but I found it a very hard, slow, trudging read. Not slow in action, there was lots in there, but slow to get through. I started on August 23 and read til September 7 - well, early hours on the 8th. That's over two weeks for one book? And not pick up here and there, I mean an hour or more a day (well, in the middle of the night) of reading. Way longer than usual for me. And what about that Pulitzer? I mean, it may sound like sour grapes, but I didn't think it was Pulitzer worthy. But it was good and I'm glad I read it.

I think I struggled with my own naivety. There was a lot of drugs and petty crimes in the book, stuff that was just par for the course in the story, but it really bothered me. I wanted the MC to raise above it, even if that would have created more of a fairy tale than a true story. I guess I like clean lines and happy endings. Because of their choices, I struggled to empathize with the characters and at points really didn't like them very much.

The characters were well developed and well defined. Perhaps my favourite part of the book was Boris' dialect and grammar... very true, very consistent, I could hear him talking in my head. For him alone, this book might make a good movie.

Read it if you get the chance!