Rating: 
Summary: meandering, dissapointing...but hard to give up on
Review: Reading this book is like watching a baseball game where the score wildly and unexpectedly changes every inning - and with it, your interest in the matchup. At first, your team is up by three runs and the game is exciting. Then it's down by seven runs and you start to lose interest. Then they pull even, only to fall way behind again. Finally, in the 9th, your team loads the bases and can win with a grand slam, but instead meagerly pops out to the first baseman.
My point: the book has some very promising parts - enough to keep reading - but is interspersed with meandering episodes that don't further the plot. Ultimately, as the book finally begins to pick up, it ends with a whimper, making at least 50 percent of it irrelevant. Ultimately, it's unfulfilling, somewhat frustrating and almost a waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Anti-climatic Story
Review: I waded through this 555 page novel only to be disappointed in the anti-climatic and flat ending. I have lived in the South and was eager to read about colorful characters so stereotypical of the South. There was alot of buzz about this author too. But the book just seemed to be repetitious of scene and character descriptions after a while. It seemed to lose track of its initial purpose for Harriet to solve her brother's murder. Then, in the last 50 pages, it felt like the author should 'wind things up' and boom it was over. Felt like I was reading a script for a TV movie of the week. The last page was very different in feeling from the rest of the story and left me wanting to ask, "What?!" I think the book was reading for a long time like a journal, without end. Too many important story threads not tied up. Too much detailed description of very minor things. I was disappointed that I wasted my time in reading it. I also have her other book, The Secret History, to read and am wondering if that will be similar in falling flat.
Rating:
Summary: The Little Fiasco
Review: The Little Friend is the simultaneous story of twelve-year-old Harriet, a girl burdened by the death of her brother as a child, and the Ratliff family, a collection of crystal-meth producing, good-for-nothing brothers whom Harriet suspects may have been behind her brother's murder. The problem with The Little Friend is that, aside from this vague plot sketch, it has none. The book is actually beautifully written, from a stylistic point of view. Tartt especially connects to Harriet, and draws a masterful sketch of the psyche of a pre-teen girl. Furthermore, she defines the use of the word "lush" when it comes to creating the southern, late 1970s backdrop of the novel. The Ratliff parts of the novel, although less compelling, are still nevertheless full and vibrant (to employ another cliché), and, if you can get through the first million pages, the Ratliff brothers' characters are well-rounded and eventually touching and repugnant at the same time. However, the book falls apart in terms of form. The two stories, although interestingly connected, eventually go nowhere and fail to bring about any sort of resolution at the much-maligned end. It's as if, after so many pages, Tartt just quits trying to make some sort of "point," for lack of a better word, and just ends. But to focus on the disappointing ending as the ultimate failure of the novel is to miss a lot of disappointments in between, unfortunately. I would characterize the problems with this novel as a series of missed opportunities. There is a compelling and touching relationship between Harriet and her best friend, Hely, that inexplicably changes in nature halfway through the novel from supportive to dismissive and shallow. There is the world of hurt Tartt only superficially explores in the marriage of Harriet's parents, which falls apart after her brother's murder. There are the racial tensions revolving around the setting and especially around the family housekeeper, one of the most powerful-and yet only secondary-characters in the book. And finally there is the most salient missed opportunity, the Ratliffs and their possible involvement in the murder that opens the book. We learn much about them, especially in the last million pages, and I suppose Tartt is trying to say something about the haphazard nature of violence (perhaps as haphazard as a child's motives, a possible clue as to the book's title). But the "point" is flat and ultimately too unexplored to constitute the kind of literary masterpiece a reader of The Secret History may have come to expect after waiting so long for The Little Friend. There's two kinds of long novels: those that are long because they constitute a universe within the covers, where no character is really minor and reading it is something like taking an extended trip. The other is long because it's out of control, because the writer has created a monster, powerful, a wonder, but lacking in the bolts department. Sadly, The Little Friend is the latter. It's all the more disappointing because of how close it comes to greatness, how much you really, really want it to surprise you with one of those last-minute revelations, maybe, that can change your outlook, sometimes your life. Well, no. Maybe, at the heart of this disappointment, is a question of genre: The Secret History was the literary precursor of the I Know What You Did Last Summer phenomenon, and The Little Friend, by beginning with an unsolved murder, has a whodunit feel. But Tartt didn't want to write a whodunit; it's difficult to tell what she did want to write, but that wasn't it, and those reading expecting some sort of new Nancy Drew of the South mystery are perplexed and outraged. Hopefully Tartt will come up with something more controlled next, take advantage of a really striking and unique talent, not to mention all those connections. I wouldn't read this book again (although I would recommend it as a study in near-misses), but I'll still read-even look forward to-her next novel. My guess is that The Little Friend is Tartt working out her identity, trying to move beyond the formulaic into something maybe less popular but definitely more important in terms of artistry.
Rating: 
Summary: GRRRR....Feeling Ripped Off
Review: I actually really enjoyed this book until the end...would it have killed her to put in another chapter??? To give us a real and decent ending??? There were so many loose ends, undeveloped plots/characters, What did Alison remember? After 600 pages, I wouldn't have minded more in order to not feel like I just stopped reading 2/3 of the way through. That said, the writing was lush and rich and slow; she really captured the sense and ecccentricities of the old deep south and our families' strange histories. This was an interesting story about the legacy of heinous crime -- the expectation, given the plot, was that this was a combined whodunit, coming of age, and southern class/race social commentary. It was not; it ended up being a puffy, overdone, overly symbolic--the snakes, puhleese---excercise in English 101 or literary group discussion fodder. Very sad given the promise until the very end....
Rating: 
Summary: Give the book a chance
Review: Though this book is long and detailed, that is almost its reason for being. Those readers interested in a simple, solvable mystery will be disappointed, because the book is not about solutions but rather the nature of mysteries, secrets and the desire to know more. It's also primarily about character. Reading this book was like watching a movie --- all the characters, as well as the atmosphere and events contained therein --- were described with such an unbelievable immediacy and tactile sense of detail. Writing this way is HARD --- Donna Tartt really takes you on a slow, moving journey through these characters' lives. She really gets into their heads: especially Harriett, her friend Hely and her Aunt Edie. All characters skirt stereotype but, in the end, transcend it. They are all incredibly real, vital, and vibrant --- lending the tale a relate-able , first-person richness. You feel immediately like you know these people, and rarer still, you care about them. When Harriett and Hely are in jeopardy, you fear for them personally in a way you would not in a typical mystery, where you remain convinced that you're reading a book about "characters". With Tartt's book, that distance disappears. These people become your relatives. There is throughout the novel a respect for the gravity and subjectivity of individual, lived experience. Even the drug-addled "bad guys" are so well understood and depicted by Tartt that they become sympathetic. That is really the point of the novel: that "truth" is subjective, and nothing is black or white --- and that some things about human nature will always remain a mystery to us. Harriett learns this hard life lesson early (despite the strenuous efforts of her family to quell her curiosity --- a transparent attempt to distract themselves from unpleasant thoughts) --- and some people never learn it at all. With that said, I acknowledge that the ending was a little anti-climactic compared to all that had gone on before. But I honestly can't imagine any other way the story could have ended while still remaining true to the tone of all that came before. I thoroughly enjoyed the read and, despite it being 600-pages long, did not want it to end.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I loved the Secret History, so I had high expectations for this book. Boy was I disappointed! I read the hardcover edition, and I felt that it was about 150-200 pages too long. Unfortunately, they were not consecutive pages, so I couldn't just skip over the parts that dragged. I believe the story had promise, but the follow-through and character development weren't there.
Rating:
Summary: The Critics Loved This???
Review: As others have said, I think that when an author expects readers to plow through hundreds and hundreds of pages of her novel, that she owes those readers a pay-off. I'm not even completely sure there was any point at all to Robin's death, except to act as a catalyst for Harriet's adventures. Harriet herself, to me, wavered between unlikable and plain weird. 'Suspenseful' episodes were way too protracted. When the kids broke into the preacher's house, for instance, I ended up quickly skimming pages just to get past it, and that's something I rarely do. The aborted trip to the church summer camp turned out to be pointless. Harriet's sister's developing romance with the older guy also went nowhere. Harriet's fascination with her sister's dreams ended up being meaningless. There was a lot to keep track of for ultimately no reason at all. While I'm ranting: I was really, really tired of the snake theme. I believe in our subconscious, snake's are supposed to represent forbidden sexuality or blossoming sexuality. How the hell that had anything to do with this book is beyond me, but those snakes just kept turning up. Two things that were unbearably repulsive to me: An old lady flailing around with a King Cobra latched onto her by its fangs, and a guy slowly drowning in filthy water with rotting animal carcasses. I certainly don't insist on books being pleasant, but this one left me not just unfulfilled, but with the thought, "That was ugly!" running through my mind. I hate to be so negative, but I really don't have much to say about this one that's positive.
Rating:
Summary: thanks to all the reviewers who hated this novel
Review: As so many other readers I was trapped into buying this book because I so much liked Tartt's first novel, the Secret History. Having reached page 163, I decided to quit. Life is too short to waste on boring and pretentious books such as this one. But wasn't I missing something? And who killed Robin? After reading the reviews, I feel relieved. I understand there is nothing to wait for. Thank you reviewers!! You saved me from many hours of additional boredom.
Rating: 
Summary: Read Or DIE!!!!
Review: This book has changed my life! Without it i would die. You have never lived intel you have read this book! This book takes me places that i thought i could fly to. My great uncle said this book changed his life and without it he would have never done anything he did in his life time. I would never be nice without it. I can't ever count how many times i have read this book! Please do yourself a favor and read this book, and also say my review was helpful! ;-) thankyou!!!! Love, A little Friend!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!!
Review: I absolutely loved this book! I could not put it down. The first 50 - 75 pages were a little slow, but then it took off. I really enjoyed the characters, the setting, and the super detailed description of it all. (If you don't like detail while reading, you should avoid this novel.) There were some characters that were not as developed as others. My first reaction was that a I wish they would have been. However, after discussing with friends, I realized there may have been some purpose as to why the readers does not get to know all the characters. The only disappointment comes in the last few pages. (Which is why I didn't give it 5 stars.) It gripped me until then, and then left me wondering. However, I like to wonder why Donna Tartt left it as she did. Keeps the reader imaginative as opposed to just reading someone else's imagination!
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