ONTD Book Club discussion

It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

My bf just read this and hated it, so I'm interested to see how I feel about it.

I really liked the first 2/3, hated the rest. From the whole Theo/Kitsey thing onward, I was bored and couldn't wait for it to end, tbh.

That seems to be what everyone I know has said too.

Did anyone actually read this? Since we just read The Secret History I'm wondering about how her other books are

I read this. I haven't read anything else from her though. I agree with others that the beginning is strong but it tapers off. Interesting characters, but it got very long. Towards the end, I was hoping for the book to end already.