Rating: 
Summary: The Big Disappointment
Review: FOR SERIOUS INSOMNIACS ONLY, this book clocks in at 555 dull, slow-paced, un-evenly written pages. These pages contain lifeless characters of no redeeming qualities whatsoever, entrapped in a story so long and boring, the reader could only hope there would be illustrations to wake oneself up. What's most disappointing is the writing style. How many times (in a single paragraph - never mind the whole book!)can an author begin a sentence with, "Then suddenly..." There's no surprise or anticipation for the reader, since everything 'suddenly' happens. Along with this, the author uses such words as "whoosh! went the car driving by"..."clang! went the bell"..."zoom! went the bikes". The only thing she didn't use was 'kapow!' and 'shazaammm!' from a good comic book (and that's too bad - it would have been the only source of excitement if she did). "THUMP!" went the book cover to this book when I finished it - never to be opened again!
Rating: 
Summary: Buy This Book
Review: Well, after the long dreary wasteland this year of sub-standard writing by some of my favourite authors finally there is a literary oasis. Donna Tartt has written a masterpiece of fiction. Set in modern day deep South in a small town in Mississippi it neverthesess has a feel of thirty to fourty years ago with Negro maids and nannies being paid $20 per week, kids on bicycles running free, and the langour of summer in the heat of the South. Harriett Cleve, age 12, with the assistance of Hely ('pronounced "Healy" not "Helly" to rhyme with "Nelly"'), one of the gang of boys that she leads in reinacting such things as the Last Supper, sets out to avenge the murder of her brother Robin who was found hanged in their own backyard on Mother's Day when she was one year old. "Harriet...was neither pretty nor sweet. Harriet was smart." Based on her interrogation of Ida, the family's maid, Harriet believes the murderer is a member of a red neck, trailer trash family of convicted felons one of whom operates a meth lab in the family's low rent trailer compound in the country. And then the fun begins. Revenge by pit vipers and a King cobra. Evangelistic snake waving looser preachers. How to get a snake to the selected victim (lots of collateral damage). This is a wonderful, lovingly crafted, at times hilarious story of innocence and guilt, mosquito bites and snake bites, wealth and poverty, and love. The ending leaves many open doors and may be unsatisfactory to some, but you know, I think Harriet will prevail.
Rating:
Summary: I waited 10 years for this?
Review: DISAPPOINTED is an understatement!
Rating: 
Summary: I was so disappointed!...
Review: Like everyone else, I loved The Secret History. I only recently read it for the first time and was so excited about The Little Friend. While I enjoyed the character of Harriett, I was VERY disappointed by the ending. I just couldn't believe all that build up for 500 pages and then we learn absolutely nothing at the end. I felt like I wasted two very valuable weeks reading a book with no conclusion. This is the first review I've ever written of a book but I just had to say how disappointing the books was - especially the ending.
Rating:
Summary: How can something so beautiful be so unsatisfying?
Review: They say beauty is only skin deep. Can that adage apply to literature as well as people? The Little Friend would seem to prove that it can. Donna Tartt has outdone herself producing chapter upon chapter of exquisite, tasteful, occasionally insightful prose. But to what end? After so much bounty, one feels empty and at a loss as to why. Perhaps that was Tartt's literary intent (though I would tend to doubt it). Perhaps she simply got lost in the rapture of creation. Either way, The Little Friend is a stunning disappointment. It's all style with a paucity of substance. Perhaps she thought no one would notice. That remains the true mystery of The Little Friend. And Tartt's motivation is the enigma.
Rating:
Summary: THE HEAVENS GATE OF LITERATURE!
Review: What a waste of talent!
How can someone with the ability to write The Secret History spend ten years writing this monstrosity as a follow up. The book is numbingly boring. The first twenty pages or so are tolerable but the remaining 500+ are sleep inducing.
Where is the story? Where is the development of characters? Where is the insight?
I read one hundred and seventy pages before giving up - and I was looking forward to reading the book !
A major dissapointment.
Rating:
Summary: A little too frozen for this amigo
Review: Absolutely terrible. It kills me that Tartt could have strayed so far to the back of the freezer to pull this one out, knock off the ice and stick it in the microwave. As I read this absolutely boring book, it reminded me far too well the feeling of pain one gets after eating a freezer-burned burrito. The torture of acid reflux as it creeps up your throat, causing excrutiating pain in both your chest and back. Unfortunately for me -- however bad this book is, much like the fact that I will eat another burrito, I'll probably buy another Tartt.
Rating:
Summary: A Stranger...Like a Log
Review: In Guetamala, people have diarrhea. And I, Clifford Artez, am from Guetamala. So, this morning, I had such an attack that caused me to unbuckle my pants while running to the washroom to relieve the demon in the pit of my stomach. In between bouts of explosion, I noticed one perfect solid log floating amidst the turbid soup I've created. Dear reader, if you were I, would you not have felt the loneliness that log must have felt? A stranger, amidst all that liquid, with no friends to share the feelings it must have felt. I cried for that log, or maybe it was from the pain. Diarrhea hurts. With each discharge comes the characteristic stinging, burning, and overall pain that is both satisfying and excruciating. To distract myself, I reached for "My Little Friend" and started reading. "My Little Friend" did not relieve my discomfort, nor cure me of my diarrhea. I was so disappointed that I immediately cleaned myself and proceeded to write this review. I don't know about you, but if a book, any book, does not offer relief from diarrhea, it does not deserve more than a one star rating. I felt disappointed and alone -- alone to face my diarrhea plight.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many questions left unanswered...
Review: When I read what this book was about, I was very anxious to read it...just the type of book I normally enjoy. After plowing through the book (and, unfortunately, it WAS a chore through many parts), my main feeling was frustration. Donna Tartt's sense of time and place, her beautiful descriptions of various scenes, are vivid and well written (as in "The Secret History"). But - really! - if you are going to write a 500+ page book, don't you have to tie it together better? Resolve different storylines? I had way too many questions at the end to make this a satisfying endeavor: When did the story take place? (I decided "late sixties")
WHY didn't anyone talk about Robin's murder--for 12 (!) years??
"Edie" - unlikeable as she was - is supposed to be intelligent ("I was a nurse" she keeps telling everyone, haughtily)--how can her daughter's (Charlotte) home and children be so thoroughly and heartbreakingly neglected under her very nose, and she is not the slightest bit aware of it?
I wanted to shake/slap/shout at Edie, the "aunts," and especially Charlotte. Good grief! How much inaction, vagueness, inattention, etc. can we take? Let's blame the maid for our childrens' lack of dinner while we take yet another nap. That got old real fast.
Much was discussed about Allison's "dreams" - but what about them? No tie-in, no further discussion--just dropped when convenient.
Why on earth would Harriet assume Danny Ratliff was Robin's killer--Danny was the same age as Robin! I would think even a 12 year old - especially one as "precocious" as Harriet - would know that a 9 year old could never hoist another 9 year old over a tree branch and hang him!!!
Poor little Lasharon Odum....we were getting to know her (the most sympathetic and pathetic character in the book) and root for her somehow, when - whoops! - she, too, vanishes from the plot. Why the scene in the bar with her no-good father hinting at an incestual relationship? We will never know.
Did I miss what happened with Libby's estate? Much was made about lawyer's, reddened eyes, hints of trouble---again, dropped.
Ida Rhew? Gee, she only lived with Harriet since birth and acted as a surrogate mother every day of Harriet's life--yet Harriet just can't bring herself to hug her?? or even say what she feels? This rang extremely false to me.
Although the main theme of the book was Robin's horrible death and it's impact on the lives of his family, it was not even considered significant at the end. I did not mind that it wasn't resolved--but it, too, just "went away." Danny Ratliff turned out to be Robin's "little friend" and is headed to prison, Harriet went home again to her useless mother (did the poor overworked frail Southern flower even call or visit her daughter while in the hospital?), and life goes on. YAWWWWWN. Please do NOT compare this book to "To Kill a Mockingbird." Every character in that book are absolutely perfect (the good AND the bad) and every scene evokes feeling and involvement. This book, as good as the setting and atmosphere is, left me pretty cold inside.
Rating:
Summary: Long awaited and dissapointing
Review: The Little Friend is well written but it just never takes off. I was a big fan of The Secret History but gave up reading this one about 3/4 through due to lack of interest.
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