Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Southern novel
Review: Scanning the other readers' reviews, I am baffled by their literal-mindedness and their impatience, and I wonder if most of them are accustomed to just skimming books, looking for plot. What is meant by the complaint "nothing happens" when something happens in every sentence? The only unanswered question, as far as I'm concerned, is whether Danny will also come down with the illness Harriet caught in the water tank. I knew from the start of this novel that we might never know the solution to the mystery. I was spellbound by "The Little Friend" for an entire weekend, until I finished the last page. It is much better, in my opinion, than "The Secret History." It reminds me of "The Member of the Wedding" and of "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Rating: 
Summary: Needed more focus
Review: I have to agree with many of the reviews that this was an extremely long book (uncecessarily so). I felt that much of the story did not flow and thought she is an interesting writer, I often found my mind drifting. I think this book could have certainly been significantly shorter. Plus, I did not feel that the events in the ending fit well into the inital incident of Robin's murder. I feel that book definitely needed more focus and some serious editing to cut down on the content.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed although interesting
Review: I have just finished The Little Friend. For the first 200 pages or so, I thougt I had a children's book. The story was about the actions of two eleven year old youngsters who put themselves into all kinds of desperate activities-going into dangerous places, climbing very high buildings, evading shady characters. Things that young children could never do and survive. I liked Tartt's descriptions of people and places. She does a great job on the grandmother and the aunts. The part about the group of these mature ladies in one car at one time is hilarious--a gaggle of geese. Another section in which I enjoyed her characterization was when Harriet was on a swing outside the funeral home and commented on everyone going or coming to the service. She had very uncharitable remarks about everyone. Here she showed she was believable pre-teen. She is such a sad little girl-her mother too busy grieving over her son who had been murdered 10 years ago. Harriet is at the age when she doesn't like anyone and thinks no one likes her either. To me, the characters are the whole story-each is different. I would recommend the book even though I found it too long, and the conclusion left me utterly perplexed. Perhaps I have misinterpreted the whole story. Did anyone else feel that way?
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the read
Review: I'm a fast reader, usually. This book took me three months to slog through, though I put it down and read five other novels in between attempts at reading it. I found myself alternating between extreme delight and utter disgust. Though Tartt uses language in a beautiful and moving way, there's just a lot to read here. Her characters are mostly believable, though the main character Hely is destined to grow up into a frigid, untouachable, unlovable, unlikable and untrusting adult. I find it odd to read a book when the main character is so unengaging. My main sympathies reached out to Danny,the truly tragic figure in this story and a member of a stereotyped white trash family, who could have been so much more than he was if he had been born into different circumstances. This book is probably uncomfortable for some because there is no resolution to the most basic questions raised. It's not pat and simple like so much trash we're getting these days. I think this book is destined to be a great American Classic. It's a book meant to be savored, not devoured.
Rating: 
Summary: The Little Friend
Review: I enjoyed The Secret History and The Little Friend, but they share the same weaknesses. The story-telling is rich with emotional detail, but it takes a large part of the book, which is an exceedingly long book, to get to any real action. And the ends of both books are a bit of a let-down. It seems the author didn't quite know where to go, so she just stopped.Two breaking points for me. 1) The death toll of abused animals-can anyone write a "serious" novel without a pile of road kill anymore? 2)Editing-there is a reason that good editors exist. They make art better for curbing the author's often irresistable need to fill up pages with words. Telling a well-written tale includes a healthy sense of self-restraint. An author that can edit themself is truly a gift to readers everywhere.
Rating:
Summary: Time and Place
Review: This novel takes me back to the best kind of writing I was exposed to as assignments in high school and college. She definitely knows the life of the family "which has seen better days"(I mean, look at the author's photo and haircut... is this little Harriet with the stony gaze I see all grow'd up?). Her exquisite passages which capture a time and place very well, the dexterity in language use to capture the odd displacement of grief, and the plain fact of the randomness and inexplicability of evil, with the beautiful imagery... it doesn't get much better than this for me... I am more of a nonfiction reader these days, but this book has made me want to read fiction again. On the other hand... a couple of peeves. I think I must be about the same age as her kids (I was born in 1960) and there are some slips in use of time, a few anachronisms here and there. It may be because I am 43 and she is a couple of years younger (I note a lot of difference in what kids remember sometimes, or mark as important). There are a couple of other details that bug me, like saying kente cloth comes from Nigeria (it comes from Ghana)...another was mentioning her favorite gun from her dad's collection, a Winchester shotgun from WWI (p.62) which she takes down and uses the scope mounted on it to scout the neighborhood (p. 65)... then she says she laid down "the rifle" (p. 65)... so is this Winchester a rifle or a shotgun? If she needs the scope in the story, make it a rifle. There's quite a difference, as I never heard of anyone using a scope on a shotgun, as it doesn't have the range of a rifle. The only reason I mention these kinds of things is because I truly love the book, and those little details can, for some of us, be like thumb-smudges on the Mona Lisa. Perhaps it is also trite for the stereotyped view of the maids and "the white trash" (personally I think Danny was the most tragic figure in the book, not Robin). But Tartt does have certain moments in correcting those, like the way Ida expressed her grief at the family's betrayal, and the kindness at tragedy of some of the Ratliffs (it's too easy and too in fashion to bash "trailer trash"). I think Eminem is more on the mark in that direction! The "trailer trash" experience is much more complex than contemporary culture comprehends (start with "Albion's Seed", "Redneck Heaven" or "White Trash Cookbook" for some better and still truthful directions). My own heritage has some multicolored roots in Mississippi and points south. I recommend this book highly for drawing me into fiction again, through an exquisite creation of time and place, for characters so "true" that alternately make you laugh and then make you sick. This is a book even Gum might enjoy! High five "Hat"!
Rating: 
Summary: Never had so much been written with so little said.
Review: With the exception of the first 50 pages and last 100 pages, one could tear out handfuls of this book and not miss a thing. I kept waiting for the book to "get going" but it never did. On and on it goes w/out any character development (Harriet, Edie, Hely..). Minor characters given major relevance. I kept reading hoping for some advancement but it never came. The ending is less than satisfactory but is just that: an ending. My time to read is at a minimum, sorry to say feel cheated on this. For some reason, I expected more.
Rating:
Summary: I'm Disturbed, Disrupted, and Glad I Read It
Review: I stayed up until 5:30 this morning reading this book-- literally could not put it down. Like many readers, when I finally turned that last page and saw the acknowledgments, I was stunned at all the loose ends left all over. But that was it, so I turned off the light to finally get some sleep. Only I couldn't, because I was as disturbed by the story as my schedule was disrupted by it. I started thinking about the characters, about the good and the bad in them, about the things we do to our children, the many ways we get it wrong, even when we're trying hard as we can to get it right. Poor Gam, for instance-- probably low-intelligence and certainly ignorant and abused, who damaged her children and grandchildren by giving them all the guidance she knew and all the love she had. The adult characters got their adult relationships so wrong too, between relatives, races, employers & employees . . . . So much damage. What happens next? Maybe the adults will finally look at the children and realize that whether or not Harriet is epileptic, Allison certainly is, and maybe Allison and her mother will get some badly needed counselling, esp. since Allison is getting close to remembering some things. Maybe one or both of Harriet's parents will finally come through for her and start parenting her. Maybe she will be fine whether or not they do. But I don't think so, not in this novel's world. I do think that Harriet may grow up to treat other adults and her own children better than her parents did, and that would be an accomplishment.
Rating:
Summary: Book Hurled At Wall
Review: I am not surprised by the fact that the professional reviews of this book are competely opposed to the reader reviews. I really doubt if the professionals actually read the whole book. If they had, they would have thrown it against the wall in anger just like I did. I did not expect a typical detective/mystery story, but I did expect a couple of answers at least. The characters are superbly realized, but a story can't be all character and no plot. And if an unsolved murder is the propelling basis for your whole book, you darn well ought to provide some ideas about whodunit. Book is lying on carpet, pages ruffled, will make a good hefty doorstop now.
Rating:
Summary: great writing
Review: Donna Tartt is an unusually talented writer. I read her work slowly, in order to savor the language and better-appreciate her powers of observation and insight. This book is well worth reading, and I find it annoying that "The Lovely Bones" somehow managed to outsell it during the same period. This book contains a couple of mild annoyances, which I want to mention only because they are contrivances that taint her otherwise-flawless work and, in the hope that she reads these reviews, I want her to know that readers notice. One is that she employs the murder of a young person in what I assume is an attempt to capture the sympathy of the typical child-worshipping american, who, idiotically, feels that there is no greater tragedy. The other is that her posthumous characterization of this kid is apparently contrived to warm our hearts to him. Personally, I would find that child annoying, and I have much greater appreciation for her protagonist (the wilful, recalcitrant Harriet) whom, I prefer to think, may have a great deal in common with the author herself. My earlier review of this book was premature, and I guiltily recant that testimony. Any intellectual hauteur this author may harbor, she is completely entitled to it. This is unusually good writing.
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