Rating: 
Summary: Didn't want it to end (and it didn't)...
Review: Great stuff, To Kill a Mockingbird meets Steven King, only better. Ms. Tartt has a great ear for dialogue, writes flawless prose, and does a great Southern Gothic riff. Read and enjoy. Plot somewhat lacking and the book just stops rather than ends, but this is trivial. Inspired me to go buy her other book.
Rating:
Summary: Sad, comic, and a perfect portrayal of the South
Review: I think a lot of readers have approached this book expecting to read (a) a mystery that is wrapped up neatly at the end or (b) a follow-up to _The Secret History_. This book should not be read as a mystery. It is, instead, a vivid coming-of-age novel about a little girl in the South of the 1970s. As a Southerner who grew up in a town that was very similar to Alexandria, Mississippi, I can vouch for the accuracy of Tartt's portrayal. It's all there: the crazy extended families (all living nearby and constantly in each other's business), the Pentecostal preachers, the Baptist church camp, the tangled and conflicted ways that black people and white people relate to each other. This novel follows in the tradition of great Southern writers like Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, and Ellen Gilchrist.
Rating: 
Summary: Angry about this book
Review: Before I get started, I have to say I love books with very strong character development, finding out what motivates people, why they do what they do. Wally Lamb's book had very little plot but is one of the best I've ever read simply because of the strength of the characters. I finished reading The Little Friend this morning and I was so angry. Tartt spent 450 pages on drivel, yes we understand Harriet's motivations but we really don't care. She spent significantly more pages on snakes than she did on the ending and there was so much potential for a great ending. What did her sister remember? Will Harriet ever be connected to all the problems she caused for the Ratliffs? Will anyone ever recognize that Harriet needs therapy or how emotionally abused she is? Tartt reeled the readers in with an intriguing mystery in the first pages but the story plodded along to the end (it wasn't an ending, it just ended). She could have left out the first 350 pages and had a much better book.
Rating:
Summary: Anachronistic claptrap
Review: Ms. Tartt seems to want to wake the dead with this stiff, overstuffed non-novel that harkens back to the old days and the so-called grand manner of storytelling and Gothic writing. Well, she should leave that ridiculous task to the more capable and generous Anne Rice because Tartt has inadvertently exposed herself for what she is: a fraudulent schoolmarm of a writer who borrows from the past without bringing anything new or fresh to the table. You can practically taste the dust coming off The Little Friend. It's suffocatingly dense and dull. Where's the honest, heartfelt sense of life and adventure that would have made ice-cold little Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes leap off the page and into our imaginations? Where's the suspense that could have made this epic-length exercise in ego a pleasure rather than a chore? Does Tartt truly believe she ranks up there with Dickens? The great one must be turning in his grave. No David Copperfield, The Little Friend is a bloated, smothering mess.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is amazingly ... disappointing!
Review: The hype surrounding this book drove me to give it a whirl. After all, it guaranteed a suspenseful and literary experience that few modern mysteries supply. Also, the backdrop of the story -- the South -- intrigued me. However, this book disappointed me. The Little Friend has failed to provide the insight and cleverness that I had expected.
The most frustrating part of this novel is how incredibly slow-paced it is. After an impressive and disturbing opening -- the sketching in, the padding out, of young Robin Cleve Dufresnes's brutal murder -- the story goes into a gruesomely long recount of the life of each family member after the horrible occurrence. A postmortem was vital, but I wish it hadn't taken over almost the entire novel. There are some good elements in this book. For instance, the characters are quite interesting and vivid -- especially Harriet. I also like the dark and gothic language the author uses. Unfortunately, said elements weren't enough to spark my interest. I couldn't wait to finish this book, and that is NOT a good thing.
Rating:
Summary: Supremely pretentious
Review: I applaud Amazon for posting all these reviews. Would that I had read some of them before attempting to get through this impossibly wordy, empty book. Tartt's philosophy seems to be why say something with just one word when you can say it with fifty words? Truly, she appears to be infatuated with the sound of her own excessive typing. Little Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes - can you say that fast ten times? - is a heartless creation. I certainly hope she is not based on the young Tartt, though judging from the relentlessly cold prose that Ms. Tartt seems so enamored with, it's entirely likely. The Little Friend is an overcooked stew of southern stereotypes and cliches. I suspect Ms. Tartt left out the ending to prime her readers for Return of The Little Friend in less than another decade. But I sincerely hope that's not the case.
Rating:
Summary: Dark Shadows and Star Wars
Review: Along with all the valid comments by other readers, I found the pop culture references confusing. When trying to determine when exactly the story was taking place, there was Allison devoted to Dark Shadows, cancelled in 1970 or 1971, and a Star Wars figurine stolen at camp, circa 1977. Another reference put the story back in the 1960's. Don't publishers have fact checkers for this stuff?
Rating:
Summary: To Each Our Own
Review: I was pretty surprised -- and really shouldn't be -- to see that many reviews of Donna Tartt's second novel exhibit well-known qualities of human nature, at least vis-a-vis the arts: that where an artist produces something much beloved, the public will clamor for more of exactly the same; that where an artist deviates from insisted-upon and well-worn conventions of storytelling, the public will clamor "not fair!"; that where an author toils for verisimiltude, honesty and entertainment value, the public can so easily dismiss the end product. Whatever, whatever. I found this book infinitely better than The Secret History, the flaws of which I detailed in a review of that book, as self-deprecating as I was. With TSH, Tartt seemed to need to prove herself, and I found it hilarious that the public "fell for" such erudite trappings in a novel which, to me, had not so much to offer where genuine storytelling was concerned. Oh, she put all her words in the right places, and ultimately I loved the novel. But this time, I didn't have to consult a dictionary once; the story was simple, compelling, unconventional, and true; she rose above and beyond cliche to create a work all her own. I was honestly astounded at how well-written and how engaging The Little Friend was. I'll reserve all further comments about the many reviews I've just read -- from readers, here -- except to say I find it a little disturbing that the battle which TLF has engendered extends beyond mere opinions, to an almost eerie refusal by amazon.com reviewers to grant any legitimacy to reviews praising this book. Look at the previous reviews; those praising the book have low ratings from anyone finding them "helpful," while with an almost dogged insistence, readers have unanimously found "helpful" those reviews of this book which trash it. Spectacularly bizarre. I found most of the reviews praising this book to mirror my own reflections of it to a T, and those trashing it -- Well, I'll keep that to myself, and stay humble.
Rating:
Summary: i'm so bummed....
Review: i had so much hope for another 'secret history' but this sure isn't it. what happened? i kept thinking if i read just one more page it would get better, but it never did. the whole snake thing was just too much, too ridiculous. i don't think this would even make a bad movie. c'mon, donna, where's the stuff?
Rating:
Summary: Headed for the Bargain Bin
Review: Having worked in bookstores on and off for several years, I can say with some surety that "The Little Friend" will be on the bargain tables in no time...or at least it should. I seriously hope the publishers were wise enough not to print too many copies of this constipated disaster. I'm glad Ms. Tartt knows how to use lots of adjectives when describing something as uninteresting as a blade of grass, but after around 60 pages of these never-ending sentences I was ready to whip out my red marker, call her editor and say, "What WERE you thinking?" Don't get me wrong, I love and appreciate a beautifully written sentence but most of Tartt's could benefit from the "less is more" theory. Can you tell yet that I hated this book? (Well I did.) I ended up skimming a lot of the final 250 pages because I was curious to see who the murderer was. But then, after the final page, I was so pleased that I skimmed instead of actually laboring through the mess because the ending would have been even more insulting had I actually taken the time to savor every unnecessary word. I'm glad I borrowed it from my father instead of paying for it. I will, however, strongly encourage people to buy and read "The Secret History" (also by Tartt). That book was amazing!! and it's a shame that TLF doesn't even come close.
|
