I Tackled “The Goldfinch” and Won
I posted the above tweet last week. You see, I’m not the quickest reader out there. I like to absorb a book’s details. But I can usually polish off a novel in a week. At most, two weeks. But three and a half weeks? That’s a slogfest.
So I was happy to finally finish The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I shared my review of it on Book Club Mom so I won’t rehash it here. Just know finishing it has left me too weary to write a longer blog post.
And that’s a win in your column.
Image from Microsoft Clip Art
What book took you forever to finish? Any long tomes on your to-be-read list?
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Carrie Rubin is the author of Eating Bull and The Seneca Scourge. For full bio, click here.
272 Responses to “I Tackled “The Goldfinch” and Won”
I actually ended up skipping through much of Tartt’s book. I found it interminable! I think I’ll check out your review.
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Just read your review. You were very diplomatic and very kind.
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Ha, thank you. That’s always a safe way to go. 🙂
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📚📚
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Thank you. Yes, it got loooong-winded in parts. But I mustered through it since it was for my book club.
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The Las Vegas section was absolute torture! It took her 10 years!???? You’re a better woman than I am.
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Yes, that was a long section for sure.
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Have you had a chance to read The Little Friend or The History?
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No, I haven’t read either of those.
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Her first book The History took her 10 years to write and she was hailed as an up and coming young author. It was well written and actually set here in RI and Connecticut. Then, it took her 10 more years to write The Little Friend and it was not well received. I read it but can’t remember anything about it. 10 years later she gets the Pulitzer for The Goldfinch, but it was panned by The Paris Review among other well-respected reviewers. Not sure what’s going on with her, but she researches fastidiously, has a great vocabulary and I guess setting it in NYC didn’t hurt. The main character actually comments on this in my own mystery Last Train to Kingston that I’m still not done editing.Hopefully it won’t take me 10 years! I’m way too old!!!
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Yikes. Ten years per book is a long time!
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She does a lot of research and editing I guess? I’m really hoping her next book takes less time and more palatable.
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I’m a voracious reader, and since I’ve been convalescing, I’m going through more than 1 per day. I think I read attentively, but 3 books later I couldn’t tell you what most are about. Sean is a speed-reader by default, a habit learned in law school that he can’t shake and would like to, at least for leisure reading.
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I’m the opposite of Sean–because of med school, I’ve developed the habit of needing to read every word. No skimming for me. So I’m a slow reader.
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The Goldfinch is still on my to-be-read list. So is Cloud Atlas — I started it a couple years ago and couldn’t seem to get into it. Maybe I’ll try again this year; it is a new year, after all. In terms of books that took forever for me to finish, I had to read Tess of the D’Urbervilles in college about a decade ago, and that was a whopper. I did finish it, though. Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, which I was *supposed* to read for that same class, never quite made it to the finish line. I did write a paper about it somehow. Wonders never cease…
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I have Tess of the D’Ubervilles on my bookshelf. In fact, it’s been there unread for years. Something tells me I won’t be getting to it anytime soon…
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Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The book that just wouldn’t end. I’ve learned now that many books on the New York Times type lists are just not for me. Congrats on the review!
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Thank you. And I agree–I’m often not drawn to those lists that tell us what books we should read in our lifetime either.
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The Household Guide to Dying. Three months and I just finished it. Now she’s dead, thank god for that!
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Haha, I haven’t heard of that one. I’ll have to check it out. And put it on my “you’ll never finish list.” 😉
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LOL. I’m in the middle of Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings. It’s a beautiful book but it’s something that I read in small amounts and put aside. Same with Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. Some long books are just hard to get through no matter how great they are. I’ve been reading more YA and it’s so cool to polish off a book in 3-5 days. Makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something.
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Yes, thank goodness for the shorter ones. They let us whittle through that TBR list!
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